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PROM THE 

J. HUNTINGTON WOLCOTT 

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GIVEN BY BOGER WOLCOTT [CLASS 
OF 1870] IN MXMOKX or HIS rAlBO 
rOB THE "FOKCOASB 07 BOOKS OF 
PESUANENT VALUE, THE PSEFEIENCB 
TO BE GIVEN TO WOIXS OF HISIOBY, 
FOUnCAL BCONOlfV AMD SOCIOLOOY" 



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UFE OF THE RIGHT HON. 
SIR WILUAM MOLESWORTH, Bart., 



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Life of the Right Hon. 
Sir William Molesworth, 
Bart., M.P., F.R.S., by Mrs. 
Fawcett, ll.d. 



' MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited 



K : THE MACHILLAH 



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*' Evert such wir [with an ezternRl foe] » nccesMiily an 
Imperial WW ; the troopi employed in it are employed for 
Imperial purposet, and consequently their expenses ought to 
be paid by the Imperial Government ; though in certsin cases 
it would not be unreawnable to expect that the Colonies should 
assist the Empire both with troops and money ; and I ftel €Bn- 
vincid that if tit CaUmti mert governed as they sughl to ie, they 
would gladij and toiHinglj came to tie aid of the metier country in 
any just and necessary tear. They would do ai the men of our 
old North American plantations did during a war with France, 
when they willingly bore a large portion of the burden of the 
contest with that monarchy and its Indian allies, and in every 
way proved themselves to be the hardy and generous sons of 
England." — House of Commons speech by Sir William Moles- 
worth, April lo, 1851, on s motion for the reduction of 
Colonial expenditure. 



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CONTENTS 

Ihtroduction . . 

CHAPTER I 

Paibntaci and Education 

CHAPTER II 

Entkakci into PoLiTiCAi Life 

CHAPTER HI 

"The Loudon Review" 

CHAPTER IV 
The Rbfoeu Club . 

CHAPTER V 
The Orahqb Lodgm 

CHAPTER VI 

Family Aftaim — 1836 



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vi SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH 

CHAPTER VII 
Decline op Philosophic Radicalism . 

CHAPTER Vni 
Sir William Moleswortm as a Colonial Reformer 
— The Ti[AN*poiiT*T!ON Cohmittee 

CHAPTER IX 

The South Australian and New Zealand Associa- 

CHAPTER X 

Canada ...... 

CHAPTER XI 
The Edition op Hobbes and Sir W. Molesworth's 
Retirement prom Parliament . 

CHAPTER XII 
1841-45 — ^"^ *'■ Pencarrow — Marriage . 

CHAPTER XIII 
Southwark Election, 1845, and Sir William Molbs- 
worth's Position on QuEn^oNs of Religious 



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CHAPTER XIV 
Acun IN PAKLiAiiEirr — Work oh Colonial Repokm 

CHAPTER XV 

The Last op TuNtroKTATioN . ^ . . . 

CHAPTER XVI 

Sir William Molesworth joiks Lord Aukduh') 
GovBKKMEirr as Fixtr Commihionbr of Works 

CHAPTER XVII 

South Africa in 1SJ2-54 .... 



CHAPTER XVIII 



Closing Yeau 



Dbscknt op Sir William Moleiwoxth from Hbnder 

MOLESWORTH, THE FIRST BaRONBT 

hirr OF Six William Moleiwortk'i Houib dp 
CouMDiM Speeches oh Colonial Subjects 

Chronological Table of Chief Etehts in Sir 
William Molesworth's Life 



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INTRODUCTION 

' It will be generally conceded that the most im- 
portant political event of recent times is the 
demonstration of the strength of the tie which 
unites Great Britain with her Colonies, and that 
this tie is not only capable of bearing the tension 
of war, but has gathered strength through that 
very tension. 

The great diiFerence in the reciprocal feelings 
between the mother country and the Colonies at 
the present moment, and even a few years ago, 
can be referred by almost every one to personal 
experience and memory. But the extraordinary 
difference in this feeling between the present time 
and fifty or sixty years ago can only be gathered 
by those who take the trouble to make themselves 
acquainted with events too recent for history and 
too remote for politics. Such books as Miss 
Martineau's History of the Thirty Tears' Peace, 



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2 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH 

1815-184$., teem with evidence of Colonial dis- 
content and disloyalty : discontent and disloyalty 
which should be entered in the National Ledger as 
" for value received." In one of Miss Martineau's 
concluding chapters, she says : " Next to Ireland, 
our Colonies continue to be the opprobrium of our 
empire." The half-century which has passed since 
these words were written has converted the 
" opprobrium of our empire *' into its greatest glory 
and pride. A group of men, represented inside 
Parliament by Lord Durham, Charles Buller and 
Sir William Molesworth, and outside Parliament 
by Edward Gibbon Wakefield and John Stuart Mill, 
deserve the chief credit of this brilliant transfor- 
mation. They saw, and gradually educated the 
public to see, that the true remedy for Colonial 
discontent could be found only by giving every 
Colony, as soon as circumstances rendered it possible, 
self-government and free representative institu- 
tions. When the small band of Colonial Reformers 
began their work they had against them the whole 
official class who believed that Colonial self-govern- , 
ment would be inconsistent with the sovereignty 
of Great Britain, and also the popular political 
philosophy of the day, represented first by Bentham, 
and later by Cobden, which favoured the complete 



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INTRODUCTION j 

relinquishment of that soverdgnty. It says much 
for their practical sagacity and statesmanship that 
the Colonial Reformers were able to make way 
ag^nst such odds. 

The settlement of Canada after the rebellion of 
1837-38 was so brilliant an achievement, that the 
names of Lord Durham and of Charles Buller will 
always be illuminated by its fame. John Stuart 
Mill has so many claims on the remembrance and 
gratitude of the present generation that there is 
no need to light a taper at his shrine, Edward 
Gibbon Wakefield and Sir William Molesworth 
stand in a different category, and there appeared 
for some years a chance that the work of these 
two men as Colonial Reformers and as founders of 
the present Colonial system of Great Britain might 
fell into undeserved neglect. Dr. Richard Garnett 
has recently written an interesting monograph 
on Wakefield, and it is my desire to perform, 
however inadequately, the same office for 
Molesworth : to introduce him ,to the present 
generation and show them how much they owe to 
him. He belonged to the race of intre[Md invalids. 
He hardly knew the meaning of the word health, 
and his life ended at the age of forty-five. But he 
was an incessant and indefatigable worker, and he 



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4 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH 

has left his mark for all time on the Colonial 
history of Great Britain. He foresaw, as very few 
did in his time, that the root of Colonial loyalty 
could flourish only in Colonial freedom. In 1851, 
when actual experience of Colonial relations was 
one long record of discontent vetoing again and 
again on rebellion, he rused the question of 
Colonial expenditure in the House of Commons, 
and in the course of his speech used the following 
words : "Every such war" [with an external foe] 
" is necessarily an imperial war; the troops employed 
in it arc employed for imperial purposes, and con- 
sequently their expenses ought to be paid by the 
Imperial Government ; though in certain cases it 
would not be unreasonable to expect that the 
Colonies should assist the Empire both with troops 
and with money, and I feel convinced that if the 
Colonies were governed as they ought to be, they would 
gladly and willingly come to the aid of the mother 
country in any just and necessary war : they would 
do as, the men of our old North American planta- 
tions did during a war with France, when they 
willingly bore a large part of the burden of the 
contest with that monarchy and its Indian allies, 
and in every way proved themselves to be the 
hardy and generous sons of Ejigland." 



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INTRODUCTION j 

The prophecy of 1851 has been amply fulfilled 
in 1899 and 1901. Sir William Molesworth not 
only uttered the prophecy but rendered its fulfil- 
ment possible by helping to base our Colonial 
policy on broad and generous statesmanship. Such 
a man has a strong claim on the gratitude of the 
present generation. He and a handful of friends 
laboured, and we have entered into the fruits of 
their labours. An acknowledgment of what we 
owe to those who have gone before is one of the 
strongest of the links tnndtng the present with 
the past. Is it permissible to refer to another 
small link in that chain, the interest in which is 
largely personal to myself? Almost exactly forty- 
one years ago (October i860) Henry Fawcett, 
young and unknown, offered himself as a parlia- 
mentary candidate for the borough of Southwark, 
the constituency which had been represented by 
Sir William Molesworth at the time of his death, 
five years earher. Henry Fawcett stood as an 
independent Radical in opposition to the official 
liberal candidate, and he described himself to the 
constituency as a political follower of Sir William 
Molesworth. Needless to say he was unsuccessfiil, 
but it was his introduction to practical political 
life, and it is a source of some interest that the 



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6 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH 

younger man assodated himself with the views and 
aims of the elder. 

It is the object of the foUomng p^es to render 
accessible some account of the political work of Sir 
William Molesworth and to give a picture of his 
personality. My task has been greatly facilitated 
by the generous confidence of Sir William's only 
surviving sister, Mrs. Richard Ford of Pencarrow. 
She possesses a large collection of letters and other 
documents relating to her distinguished brother, 
which she has placed unreservedly at my disposal. 
It would have been impossible for me to have 
given even the barest outline of Sir William's life 
without her help and co-operation, for which I take 
this opportunity of expressing my sincere gratitude. 



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PARENTAGE AND EDUCATION 

The Molesworths of Pencarrow, in the county of 
Cornwall, are a family of geniune antiquity. One 
of their traditions is that an ancestor, Sir Walter 
de Molesworth, accompanied Prince Edward, 
afterwards Edward I., to the Holy Land in 1 270 ; 
another ancestor, John Molesworth, was certiunly 
'• Auditor of Gsrnwall " in the time of Queen 
Elizabeth. It was he who settled at Pencarrow. 
Hender Molesworth, grandson of this John, was 
President of the Council of Jamaica in 1684 and 
subsequently Governor of the island. He identi- 
fied himself with the Whigs of i688, and he is 
said to have been the first baronet created by 
William III. The patent is dated 19th July 1689. 
A succession of Molesworths (two Johns and a 
William) represented Cwnish constituencies from 
the beginning of the eighteenth century till almost 
its close. The marriages of the Molesworths gener- 



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8 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chai-. 

ally added strength in the form of either money, 
brains or beauty to the original stock. One of the 
most notable of these unions was made in the eight- 
eenth century, when the Sir William Molcsworth of 
that day married Miss Ourry, a lady in whose veins 
ran Huguenot blood. She wasdescended from Louis 
Ourry, born at Blois in 1682, three years before 
the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, In 1 707 
his fidelity to his religion drove him from his 
native country ; he came to England and received 
a commission in the English army. He and his 
wife left a position of wealth and influence in 
France. Of the many valuables in their possession, 
they were able to bring away only a pearl necklace ; * 
plate and other treasures were left concealed in 
France, The Ourrys quickly identified themselves 
with their adopted country. Louis, the original 
fiigitive, as has been seen, entered the British Army, 
and of his four sons, one followed his father's pro- 
fession and the other three entered the Navy. 
From one of these latter, who to Huguenot blood 
added the training and traditions of a British 
Admiral, the subject of these pages was descended. 
In the Lives of British Admirals, vol. v. p. 1 1 3, 
maystiUberead how, "in November 1760, Captain 
Ourry of the Actaon chased a large privateer and 
drove her on shore between Cape Barflcur and La 

' Still in Uw pONcaion of their detcenduiu, tlie Miu Lcmpricro of 
Pelhim, Alton, Himpabire. 



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I PARENTAGE AND EDUCATION 9 

Hogue, and his cutter scoured the coast and tcx>k 
or destroyed forty vessels of considerable burden 
which carried on a great fishing near Dieppe." 
Admiral Ourry was afterwards made Commis»oner 
of Plymouth ; his wife was a Cornish heiress and 
their daughter married Sir William Molesworth, 
the sixth baronet, and became the mother of Sir 
Arscott Ourry Molesworth, the father of our Sir 
William. 

Sir Arscott Ourry Molesworth did not neglect 
the tradition of his race, that the marriages 
of the family shoidd bring new vigour to the 
Molesworth stock. His wife was a Scottish lady 
descended fiism the Hume family, of which David 
Hume, the historian, was the most brilliant orna- 
ment. Our Sir William always took a special 
pleasure in this connection, and referred to it with 
well-founded pride when the freedom of the city 
of Edinburgh was conferred on him in 1854, the 
year before his death. Sir William's mother 
brought to the family into which she married the 
inheritance of beauty as well as that of mental dis- 
tinction. She was the daughter of a celebrated 
Eldinburgh beauty, *' Betsy Hume." The story is 
that the beautiful Betsy Hume was eng^ed to her 
cousin, Sir Alexander Kinloch,but in spite of thiswas 
besi^ed by another assiduous lover, Captain Brown, 
who toasted her at every supper party in Edinburgh. 
When asked how long and how often he would 



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lo SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

do this, he replied, " I shall toast her till I make 
her Brown." Such importunity did not remain 
unrequited. Sir Alexander Kinloch was gathered 
to his fathers before he had led his bride to the 
altar ; the beautiful Betsy Hume became the beau- 
tiful Betsy Brown and mother of the lady who 
married Sir Arscott Ourry Molesworth and in 
course of time grandmother of the subject of these 
pages, who was born in London on 23rd May 
1 8 10. 

The Molesworths were a short-lived family ; in 
the eighteenth century baronet succeeded baronet 
at short intervals. But the Scotch marriage of 
Sir Arscott Ourry Molesworth brought into the 
family a strain of much stronger physical vitality. 
The mother of Sir William Molesworth had a. 
physical constitution which prolonged her life in 
unimpaired vigour to extreme old age ; she had 
also the moral qualities of self-reliance, sound 
judgment, and unbending determination charac- 
teristic of her country ; and these made her first a 
competent guardian, and to the end of his life the 
trusted friend and confidante of her son. He 
inherited many of his mental qualities from his 
mother : in her splendid physical constitution he 
had unhappily no share. His father, Sir Arscott 
Ourry Molesworth (of whom Pencarrow boasts a 
splendid full-length portrait by Raeburn), died at 
the age of thirty-two, on 26th December 1823, 



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I PARENTAGE AND EDUCATION ii 

leaving five children, three sons and two daughters.' 
William Molesworth was thus left, at the age of 
thirteen years, the eighth baronet of his line, the 
head of an ancient family, the owner of great 
estates,' in possession of mental vigour far beyond 
hb years and an extremely delicate physical con- 
stitution : a perilous conjunction notwithstanding 
all that an able and conscientious mother could do 
to reduce its dangers. 

The state of his health rendered the discipline 
which a public school would have afforded entirely 
out of the question. He was indeed entered for 
Eton, but it was impossible for him to go there. 
In 1824, shortly after his father's death, Lady 
Molesworth consixlted some of the leading 
physioans of the day on the possibility of letting 
him go to Eton. The verdict was, "You might 
as well hang him up at the Cross of Edinburgh." 
Fragile health was a burden which he carried with 
him from the cradle to the grave. But his excep- 
tional mental capacity manifested itself also from 
his e^Uest years. When he was hardly more than 
a baby his sister's governess gave him some of her 
sums to work out, thinking to distract the mind 
of the mllng child from his physical suiFerlngs ; he 
qiuckly showed his innate Interest In study and 

I Williun, bom 1S10, die 
Ancott OoTTf, bam 1S14, died 
Aleuoder, bom lilt, died 1846. 

■ Tetcott in DcTonihire, iml Pcocwrow ia CornwilL 



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i» SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chaf. 

a natural capacity for arithmetic, mathematics and. 
scientific pursuits. He spent a short time in a 
preparatory school at Putney ; but he was too 
weakly to join in the games of the other boys and 
was thus thrown more than ever upon his books 
and his own thoughts. His mother probably did 
the best that could have been done under the 
circumstances ; in 1 824, when he was fourteen, she 
went to live in Edinburgh, taking him and her 
other children with her. 

Another Cornishman, destined like Molesworth 
to play a brief but distinguished part in political 
life, had received part of his education in Edin- 
burgh, only just escaping being a contemporary of 
Sir William Molesworth there. Charles Buller 
had been placed by his parents in Edinburgh, with 
Thomas Carlyle as his private tutor, in the years 
1822-23. Carlyle described Charles Buller with 
unusual urbanity as "a most manageable, cheery 
and altc^ether welcome and intelligible phenome- 
non : quite a bit of sunshine in my dreary 
Edinburgh element " ; and ag^n, at the time of 
Buller 's death, Carlyle wrote of him in the 
Examiner : " A sound, penetrating intellect, full 
of adroit resources, and loyal by nature itself to all 
that was methodic, manful, true." There is no 
evidence that Lady Molesworth was influenced by 
the BuUers to bring her son to Edinburgh. Her 
own Scottish connections and her appreciation of 



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I PARENTAGE AND EDUCATION 13 

Scottish university education afford a sufficient 
reason for her choice. Sir William joined many 
of the university classes ; he also stiulied modern 
languages in Edinburgh under first-rate professors, 
and became a good Italian and French scholar and 
g^ned a fair acquaintance with German ; at a later 
period, a year's residence in Germany and an indus- 
trious course of study of German philosophy and 
metaphysics gave him a complete command of the 
language at a time when it was very little known 
in this country. During his residence in Eldinburgh, 
boy as he was, he was a great deal noticed by many 
of the most distinguished men there, among whom 
he would sometimes mention in later life Sir 
Walter Scott, Sir William Hamilton, Jeffrey and 
the Professors Brewster, Leslie, Jamieson, Hope, etc. 
His Italian master in Edinburgh was a Signor 
Demarchi,^ a superior and able man who had been 
driven from his own country as a political refugee. 
Young Molesworth became not only his pupil but 
his friend, and this friendship strengthened the 
ardent opposition to political despotism which was 
so marked in Molesworth's after-life. He attached 
great importance himself to the bias given to his 
mind by the education he received in Edinbui^h. 
His taste for science was manifested in the usual 
boyish way : he made himself a chemical laboratory 

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Department in Piedmont. 



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14 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

and burnt holes in his sister's frocks and nearly 
poisoned himself by inhaling chlorine gas. At this 
early period of his life his family gave him the 
nickname of "the philosopher," which remained 
with him through life and the remembrance of 
which is perpetuated in the name of the " Philo- 
sophic Radicals," the political party with which he 
was identified on his first entrance into Parliament. 
More unusual than his chemical experiments was 
the passion he showed at a very early age for 
making libraries. Before he was fifteen, all his 
spare money was spent on books : and the love of 
books continued to the end of his life. Pencarrow 
contains three complete libraries, affording unmis- 
takable evidence of what Sir William's tastes 
were, just as the three perfect cock-pits in the 
grounds immediately surrounding the house are 
indicative of the tastes of his ancestors. By his 
last will his libraries were strictly ent^ed ; no 
book forming part of them may be taken away 
from the house. While he was still very young 
he made great prepress in his favourite study of 
mathematics, and it is said that before he left 
Edinburgh he had mastered the whole of Laplace's 
Mecanique Celeste. 

Lady Molesworth, writing to Lord Erskine, 
British Minister in Munich in 1828, described her 
son as having been from his infancy " more man 
than boy," It is rather consolatory, however, to 



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I PARENTAGE AND EDUCATION 15 

see that "the boy" gained the upper hand of 
" the man " from time to time, as for instance in 
1 824, when he writes to his mother for his " Italian 
grammar, likewise my fishing-rod," and adds, "If 
there Is any fishing-Zd;^ (-"f). tell Cleve to bring 
it." Throughout life his spelling was most erratic, 
and in his letters on all sorts of learned subjects 
we come across many words in an orth<^raphy 
all his own. Correct spelling was still perhaps 
considered a more fitting accomplishment for an 
attorney's clerk than for a gentleman. 

It was the one serious mistake which his mother 
made about his education, that when he was seven- 
teen, on the advice of his uncle, Rev. W. Moles- 
worth, rector of St. Breoke,Wadebridge, she entered 
him as an undei^aduate of St. John's College, 
Cambridge. At Edinburgh he had been the fnend 
and companion of its most eminent men at a time 
when it was the centre of the intellectual activity 
of the North : Cambridge at that date was sunk 
in sloth and routine. He who was already an 
advanced mathematician was put into a class that 
was grappling, not too successfully, with the first 
book of Euclid ; "an ennui," he says, "which I 
would not support for the fabled treasures of 
Crossus." The friend of Sir Walter Scott, Sir 
William Hamilton, etc., grumbled loud and long 
against the statu pupillari of the Cambridge of 
1827. He did not feel that Cambridge was 



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i6 SJR WILUAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

teaching htm anything ; moreover, he did not 
consider himself treated like a gentleman. He 
especially declaimed against his own college. 
"They are not gentlemen," he writes to his mother 
of his pastors and masters, " nor do they in general 
possess the manners of gentlemen. ... I have 
now quarrelled with my tutor, Gwatkin, who did 
not cert^nly treat me in a gentlemanly manner. 
I have told them that I intend to leave my college 
for Trinity as soon as possible. ... If I was to 
remain at St. John's, I should be vrithout doubt 
miserable." The migration to Trinity was there- 
fore accomplished without delay. Sir William 
Molesworth was in good company in his com- 
plaints of the Cambridge of his day. Almost at 
the same time Charles Darwin and Alfred Tenny- 
son were at the University, and their feeling to- 
wards her was very similar to Molesworth's. 
Tennyson expressed his feelings in a sonnet, 
printed in the present Lord Tennyson's Life of 
his father, vol. i. p. 67, vigorously denoundng the 
Univeraty. The concluding lines are — 

You that do pTofess to teach 
And teach at nothing, feeding not the heart. 

Some indication of the impression Molesworth 
made upon his contemporaries at Cambridge may 
be gathered from a slight satirical sketch, accom- 
panied by a portrait, both probably contributed by 



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I PARENTAGE AND EDUCATION 17 

Thackeray to "The Maclise Portrait Gallery," 
which originally appeared in Fraser^s Magazine 
between 1830 and 1838. Thackeray was Moles- 
worth's junior at Trinity only by one year, and 
was his intimate Mend in later life. The sketch 
represents " our great statesman " in his closet 
meditating on " cosmogony, or the state of human 
affairs," and gorgeously arrayed in damask dressing- 
gown and embroidered Grecian cap. His various 
accomplishments are thus described : '* Not political 
[stucUes] alone engage his mind ; he is a profound 
metaphysician ; as a linguist, stupendous ; as a 
mathematician, he has attained a depth which is 
more easily imagined than described. Sir Isaac 
Newton once said in our hearing, when Sir William, 
as a lad, came up to Trinity, ' Dash my wig, Mr. 
Yorke ! that young man beats me all to shivers.' 
We speak within compass when we say that Sir 
William reads you off a page of Chinese with 
great ease and the true Pekin accent ... we have 
even heard that he not only admires, but under- 
stands, Jeremy Bentham. Our artist remarked 
nothing further . . . except that on his entrance 
Sir William was occupied reading an enormous 
folio of French mathematics, and that by the 
honourable baronet's side lay the ashes of four- 
and-twenty cigars. Trifling particulars ; but 
interesting to those who love to penetrate into 
human character, and are eager to know the 



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i8 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chai-. 

smallest circumstances relating to good or great 
men," Most readers will agree that this is un- 
mistakable " Michael Angelo Titmarsh." It 
bears his mark and so does the sketch. Both are 
characteristic of the good-humoured chaff with 
which one young man often regards the ac- 
complbhments of another. 

Sir William's principal amusement at Cambridge 
was hunting ; his f)Oor health did not prevent him 
from being a hard rider. Pencarrow is not in a 
good hunting country ; but Tetcott, the other 
estate, is, and during Sir William's minority the 
covers there used to be drawn by the famous hunt- 
ing parson, the Rev. " Jack " Russell. Sir William, 
therefore, had great traditions to live up to in the 
hunting-field when he came to Cambridge, and he 
seems to have been worthy of them. On one 
occasion he rode for fifty miles after a fall in which 
he had broken his collar-bone. On another, he 
considered his life was saved by his friend Mr. 
Duppa, who came to his assistance at a critical 
moment when all the rest of the field had passed 
him by. This was the beginning of a long friend- 
ship which had many consequences. 

At Cambridge and throughout nearly the whole 
of his life when he was away from home, it was 
his habit to write fully and frequently to his mother 
and sisters of everything he was doing. In a 
charming boyish letter to Lady Molesworth he 



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I PARENTAGE AND EDUCATION 19 

tells her of his long runs and hairbreadth escapes 
and concludes : " If you do not wish me to have 
my neck broken you must consent to let me 
have good hunters, for not to hunt is out of the 
question." 

In April 1828, when Sir William had been less 
than a year at Cambridge, his friend Duppa 
got into trouble with the college authorities in 
connection with some gambling scrape. Sir 
William took up his ft-iend's cause with all the 
ardour of his nature, and probably made no secret 
of the sentiments ^th which Cambridge education 
and Cambridge dons had inspired him. In this 
quarrel he quickly exchanged the place of second 
for principal, with what seems now the absurd 
result that he sent a challenge to fight a duel to 
his collie tutor, Mr. Henry Barnard. The first 
effect of this was that on 30th April 1828 he and 
Mr. Barnard were bound over by the Mayor of 
Cambridge to keep the peace for twelve months ; 
the second that Molesworth was expelled from 
Cambridge ; the third that his mother determined 
to continue his education in Germany, her kind 
old friend. General Sir Joseph Straton,' acting as 
her son's guide, philosopher and friend. 

' Sir JoKph Stntan wu i diitiDguahrd officer. During hii iclivc 
mSittrj caretT he wu known u Joteph Muter. He chuged hit aune to 
Straton in 1816 on Mcceeding to lome propcrtjr. He lerved through three 
cunpaigM in tbe Penioiuli. In 181] he wu notninited la ■ Lient.- 
Colonelcy in tbe 6th InaUlciUing Drigoou ind wu promoud Coloticl in 



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20 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

During the twelve months in which the antago- 
nists had been bound over to keep the peace, 
the laws of England prevented a hostile meet- 
ing ; at the very hour when the twelve months 
had expired, the laws of *' honour " demanded that 
they should try to kill each other. Therefore, on 
the ist May 1829, Mr. Henry Barnard and Sir 
William Molesworth " met " at Calais and ex- 
changed shots, without, however, doing each other 
any harm. 

Sir William wrote on the following day to his 
mother : — 

I am happy to inform you I am alive and welL . . . 
The distance from Munich to Calais is abova 700 miles, 
and took me thirteen days all alone with my servant ; 
nothing but an afiair would ever induce me to take such 
a journey alone. ... I agree with him [General Straton] 
in being most highly satisfied with your conduct through- 
out the affair. 

There are several points in this note that help 
us to measure the distance between 1829 and 1901 
— the days before railways are made visible to us : 
thirteen days' hard travelling between Munich and 
Calais ; we also perceive more clearly the strin- 
gency of the code of honour that made it necessary 
for a boy of nineteen to undertake such a journey 

1S14. He commuided the IiiDUkillLagt it Waterloo until the 611 of 
Major.General Sir William Ponionby, when tbe CDmniand of the Union 
Brigade devolved upon him. He wu wounded it tbe cIok of the battle. 
He died in OcCobei 1840, 



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I PARENTAGE AND EDUCATION 21 

in order to shoot at his former tutor ; and we 
can afford a smile at the lordly way in which he 
acquunts his mother that he was pleased to be 
satisfied with her conduct throughout the afiair. 
The servant referred to in the foregoing letter 
was MacLean, a Highlander, who was devoted to 
his master, and remained with Sir William from 
his boyhood to the end of his life. The duel that 
ended so harmlessly might have resulted in an 
awful tragedy. MacLean told Lady Molesworth 
that he went to the " affair " with a loaded pistol 
in his pocket, and if Barnard had killed his master, 
Maclxan had determined to murder Barnard. 

Lady Molesworth 's conduct in relation to the 
duel was shortly this : during the twelve months' 
compulsory peace between the antagonists, in 
December 1828, Lady Molesworth received a 
letter from the aunt of Mr. Henry Barnard, appealing 
to her to take steps to prevent the duel by giving 
information to the police of Calais, who, if duly 
warned, would arrest the principals on their arrival. 
The poor lady begins her letter by saying ; " As a 
female, I may be excused the anxiety it causes me ; 
and as a Christian, I am bound to take any steps 
I can to prevent a duel.*' Lady Molesworth in 
reply played the part of a Roman matron. She 
sympathised with her correspondent's feelings as an 
aunt, and hinted that her own as a mother were 
not less acute ; but she added that there was only 



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22 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

one way in which the duel could be averted, and 
that one way would be for Mr. Henry Barnard to 
apologise : '* I feel whatever influence I might 
possess over my son, I never could exercise it 
until such took place, for although his mother and 
a woman, I never could advise what hereafter 
might be deem'd injurious to his honour. It now 
rests entirely with your nephew's friends," etc. 
No wonder the young fellow was pleased when he 
knew what his mother had written. Twice in 
later life, in 1 836 and 1 837, Sir William came very 
near to fighting duels. The more interesting of 
these occasions was that in 1837, when he was 
called to account by Sir Hudson Lowe for having 
alluded to him in the House of Commons as " the 
gaoler of St. Helena." Seconds were appointed, 
but through their efforts no actual encounter took 
place. Sir Hudson Lowe was pacified by the 
assurance that the expression complained of only 
referred to the office he had held, and not to 
himself personally. 

At the time of the duel with Mr. Barnard, Sir 
William was abroad, and it was not till later that 
he knew that his mother's conduct had been 
so exactly attuned to his own. He had left 
England for Germany shordy after his departure 
from Cambridge, accompanied by General Sir 
Joseph Straton and Major Mitchell and attended 
by his ^ithful MacLean. A quarrel very soon 



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J PARENTAGE AND EDUCATION 23 

arose between Major Mitchell and his young 
companion ; the Major thought himself slighted 
by Molesworth's absorption in a German dictionary 
when he ought to hare been listening to the 
Major's conversation. The quarrel had no im- 
portance in itself, but it must be confessed that it is 
Mgnificant of a tendency in Sir William's character. 
He said himself that he had often quarrelled with 
his best friends, and that he felt it was his destiny 
continually to be in hot water. On this particular 
occasion, he seemed to have acted very well. He 
frankly and fully apologised to Major Mitchell for 
not appearing interested in his conversation. But 
wounds to vanity arc hard to heal ; the Major 
would not be pacified, notwithstanding all that 
General Straton and the younger man could do. 
The General and Sir William wrote to Lady 
Molesworth lengthy histories of the dispute, and 
have to confess that they have failed to conciliate 
their former companion. "The Major," wrote 
General Straton, *' is, I am persuaded, an excellent 
man, but so very sensitive, etc.," that he made a 
very uncomfortable travelling companion. It 
should be added that General Straton was and con- 
tinued to be till the end of his life on the most 
cordial and affectionate terms with the young man. 
The General accompanied him to Frankfort, Offen- 
bach and Munich. From Frankfort Molesworth 
wrote to his eldest sister, Elizabeth, that wherever 



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1+ SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chaf. 

they go in society he is quite put into the shade by 
the popularity of " M. le general." For almost the 
first time in his life he discovers at eighteen that 
he is a boy ; however, he adds, " when the General 
is out of the way his aide-de-camp may be talked 
to." After a short stay in Frankfort, they went 
on to Offenbach, where Sir William domiciled him- 
self in the family of Dr. Becker for two months in 
order to study German and philosophy. He 
discovers by personal experiment the social 
enormity which a youngster commits who takes 
a seat on a sofa in a German parlour, and makes 
fun in his letters home of the little German States 
where you could hardly take a walk mthout 
crossing and recrossing the frontier several times. 
In the spirit of a true John Bull, he writes 
plaintively in November : *' No fires, only stoves 
in this cursed country." His devotion to tobacco 
had already manifested itself, and he was arrested 
as a smuggler at one of the frontiers on account of 
a small quantity he was carrying in his pockat and 
fined about 2d. General Straton recommended 
that Sir William should make a long stay in 
Munich, where he had introductions to the British 
Minister, Lord Erskine. Before taking leaving of 
his charge the General wrote to Lady Molesworth, 
October 1828 :— 

I have great satisl^ction in telling you that Sir 
William's conduct has been in every respect most proper, 



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I PARENTAGE AND EDUCATION 15 

ateadjr and gentlemanlike, . . , He gave in to no nontenie 
and kept his room a great deal, pursuing his studies. 
Eveiy one played more or less, but Sir William never did, 
even for the smallest stake. He evinced no turn for any 
species of dissipation, was always most ready to receive 
and follow advice, and during the time we were together, 
he never caused to me the least inquietude. 

Lord Erskine and his family received Sir 
William in Mxmich with every hospitality and 
kindness. They would fain have had him make 
his home in the British Embassy ; this offer, how- 
ever, he firmly but gratefully declined. Lord 
Elrskine presented him to the King of Bavaria and 
to all the most fashionable society in Munich. A 
new world opened before him : a world in which 
every other accomplishment sank into insignificance 
in comparison with dancing. He writes to his 
mother : " Dancing appears to be the sole occupa- 
tion, and the centre of attraction is placed in the 
heels " ; and again, later : " A good dancer is 
looked upon as a Deity and a bad one is esteemed 

amongst the d d." In a letter to his sister 

Elizabeth he says : " The ballroom presents an 
appearance more like the betting ring at New- 
market than anything I am acquainted with," and 
he describes the eagerness with which the gentlemen 
seek to secure the best partners and buzz round a 
lady to ascert^n if she is free for the nine hundred 
and ninety-ninth waltz. With the thoroughness 



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»6 SIR WILUAM MOLESWORTH chai>. 

characteristic of him he set himself to learn to 
dance as conscientiously and thoroughly as he 
studied metaphysics and mathematics. His life 
at Munich was well filled. German philosophy 
in the morning ; fencing, sledging, dandng and the 
theatre in the later hours of the day. One thing 
astonished him considerably. He had gone to 
Munich mainly with the view of making himself 
familiar with German, but all fashionable Munich 
spoke French. " It is a nuisance," he wrote to his 
mother, in February 1829, "that in society here 
hardly a single word of German is spoken. The 
natives almost always speak to each other in French, 
and many openly declare that they prefer it to their 
own language, and if you address them in German 
they always reply in French." The predominance 
of France in politics was as marked as it was in 
social intercourse. No one can read of either in 
the early part of the century without feeling how 
much the whole of Europe was within the shadow 
of the French Revolution and of Napoleon. 

Sir William's letters home, written from Germany, 
give a humorous description of MacLean's primi- 
tive methods of " shopping " in a German town. 
If he saw what he wanted, he went up to it and 
took it ; if he could not see what he wanted he 
proceeded "cooly" (sic) to open and hunt through 
all the drawers till he found it. In a later letter, 
however, we find MacLean in search of a more 



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1 PARENTAGE AND EDUCATION 27 

excellent way. Sir William writes to his mother 
soon after his arrival in Munich : '* At this moment, 
such is the force of example, I hear MacLean read- 
ing his German lessons with his master in the 
adjacent apartment." MacLean's enthusiasm for 
the German language was probably of parasittc 
growth and was really growing on the root of his 
affection for his master. Sir William might very 
well have said at any time of his life, not only, 
"Love me, love my d(^," but " Love me, love meta- 
physics, love everything that I love." Every one 
who was with him had to be interested in the 
things that interested htm, whether it was German 
metaphysics, tree-planting, or d<^s and horses. 
He tried to impart his own interest in metaphywcs 
to Charles Mathews, the actor. Writing to con- 
gratulate him on going on the stage, in 1835, he 
says : — 

I suppose you will soon forget all the valuable meta- 
physical knowledge that I attempted to cram you with, 
and in amusing the external world you will hardly agree 
in doubting its existence, but be persuaded there is an 
unknown something which laughs at your jokes and 
enjoys your humour. 

Thackeray was wont to laugh at Sir William's 
keenness to impart, as well as to acquire knowledge. 
One of the Fencarrow possessions is a caricature 
by Thackeray, with the house in the back- 
ground labelled, " The Pencarrow Academy " ; Sir 



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38 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap, i 

William is the schoolmaster, whip in hand ; before 
him stand a group of his friends who represent the 
scholars ; they are in attitudes varying from timid- 
ity to defiance. Charles Buller is humble; " Greek" 
Trelawney is defiant ; John Temple Leader, a 
diminutive figure, is on the dunce's stool with a 
lar^ fool's cap on his head.^ 

Another small example of the same quality may 
be mentioned. Sir William, as a young man, 
became possessed of the conviction that his hand- 
writing was not all that could be desired. His 
spelling docs not seem to have disturbed him. A 
writing-master was immediately engaged, and not 
only Sir William, but his brothers and sisters were 
pressed into the class ; their handwriting was con- 
demned as a scrawl, and the group of grown-up 
young men and women set to work to improve 
their caligraphy. The scrawl was improved out 
of existence, and a neat, firm handwriting substi- 
tuted. Mr. Arscott Ourry Molesworth, however, 
m^ntiuned his scrawl unimpaired, in spite of the 
writing-master. Perhaps he did not wish to be 
improved. Again, later In life, after he had been 
four years in Parliament, Sir William put himself 

* Mr. Temple Luder ii now (1901) the oaly mrviTor of the group. He 
hat liveil foi miay ytan it Viocigliati neir Floreoce. Edward John 
Ttelawnejr, whom hit frieniii called "Greek" Trebwoey, w«i the intinute 
friend of Shelley lad Byroa. It wai he who recovered Shelley'i body and 
wu pretent when it wu bumcd oa the >ei-*hore at VU Reggio in iSix. 
Hie portrait ai an old nun ii an intereatinf feature in Millaia't wcll-knowD 
picture, " The North- Wen Paauge." 



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30 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chat. 

under an elocution-master, in order that the style 
and delivery of his speeches might be made better. 
He had very strongly developed the desire to do 
well whatever he undertook to do at all. As his 
mother wrote when she introduced him to Ix>rd 
Erskine at Munich : " He has a natural desire to 
improve himself ... he is aspiring and would 
think no fatigue too great to attain his object." 

He shared in and thoroughly enjoyed the sodal 
gaieties of Munich. The last great festivity in 
which he took part was a costume ball given by 
the Elcctress. He wrote home : " The public 
chose to affirm that I had the most splendid 
costume in the room." The pleasant life in Munich 
was cut short by the necessity, under which he 
conceived himself to lie, to travel to Calais to fight 
Mr. Barnard. 

The duel well over, he went home for a short 
visit, and consequently there is a break in the 
supply of family letters. He resumed his Euro- 
pean tour, however, in the autumn of the same year, 
and the lively letters to his mother and sisters 
b^in again. A letter dated Rome, 23rd December 
1829, tells Lady Molesworth of his vicissitudes in 
reaching the Eternal City : how his travelling 
carriage stuck in a mud-hole and was with difficulty 
extricated, etc. Once established in Rome he 
divided his time between studies and amusements 
of the same kind as those which had occupied him 



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1 PARENTAGE AND EDUCATION ji 

in Munich. He described his living room as a 
jumble of spurs, whips, fencing-foils, meerschaums, 
palettes, paint-boxes, portfolios, masks and carnival- 
costumes, while the bookshelves were filled with 
Kant and the Koran, Dante and Macchiavelli. At 
this period of his life he felt strongly attracted 
towards Eastern travel and began to make a study 
of Arabic and other Oriental languages. He worked 
diligently every day, with a " master with a long 
beard, from Chaldea." His interest in study made 
him an unusual phenomenon among the other 
young Englishmen in Rome. "I have three 
masters," he wrote, " and intend to have a fourth " ; 
he goes to " gay, very gay," parties every night ; 
but he assures his mother solemnly that his hours 
are very regular, *' to bed at three and rise again 
at nine." He took a leading part in promoting 
a fancy dress ball which was held in the carnival 
of 1830, at which he appeared in the character of 
Ivanhoe. His mother and sisters came out and 
joined him in Rome, and they remained in Italy 
visiting Naples, Castellamare, Bolc^na, etc., during 
the whole of the year 1830. In February 1831 
he was travelling homewards to keep his majority 
in May of that year. After a tempestuous voyage 
from Calais, lasting twelve hours, he landed once 
more in England, 29th March 1831. 

He was now on the verge of a man's life and a 
man's work. Childish things were to be put away 



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3» SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH ch*^. i 

and a good many things that were not childish. 
As he described a year or two later in a letter to 
his sister Elizabeth, his political duties henceforth 
absorbed all his strength : — 

They are no sinecure ; they engross my thoughts 
by day and torment my sleeping hours. There is not 
one amusement I have partaken of, there is hardly one 
study I am fond of that I can find time to pursue ; all 
my reading must now be (nearly) devoted to one end. I 
do not in any way complain, for this is the service I 
offered to perform in return for the honor confer'd. 

He was entering political life In a period of 
storm and stress, and his was not a character at any 
time that could be satisfied by placidly floating 
with the stream. His strength was therefore 
destined to be put to the test at the very outset of 
his public life. 



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CHAPTER n 

ENTRANCE INTO POLITICAL LIF£ 

The England to which Sir William Molesworth 
returned in 1831 was a WCM-Id where " nothing was 
talked of, thought of, dreamt of" but the Reform 
Bill. Everybody was deep in politics ; everybody 
was either for or against the Reform Bill : with 
this possible exception, that some members of 
Lord Grey's Government were of very doubtful 
loyalty to its leading principles. AcconUng to 
Greville, Lord Melbourne, the Home Secretary, 
could not see how the Government could be 
carried on without the ratten boroughs. But 
treachery, real or supposed, within the CaUnet 
only heightened the excitement in the country. 
There were riots in London, Bristol, Derby, 
Nottingham and Edinburgh. Queen Adelaide, 
who was supposed to be influencing the King 
against the Bill, was so unpopular that she was 
mobbed as she drove out in her carnage ; the 
Queen's Theatre changed its name and the 



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34 SIR WILUAM MOLESWORTH ch*p. 

Adel^de omnibuses pasted sheets of paper over 
" the hated letters.*' ' Another object of popular 
indignation, and for the same reason, was the 
Duke of Wellington. A tumultuous crowd surged 
round Apsley House and could only be dispersed 
by the firing of a gun over their heads. It was 
a time when even the best and coolest brains in 
England thought that the country was on the 
verge of a revolution. If the King had not been 
brought to consent to the creation of Peers 
sufficient to carry the Reform Bill in the House of 
Lords, and if under this threat the Peers had not 
given way, there is little doubt that the Reform 
refused by constitutional means would have been 
accomplished by revolution with consequences 
which none could foretell. It is difficult, urUess we 
go back to the letters and memoirs written at the 
time, to realise the intense excitement which pre- 
vailed ; some minds were filled with dread of what 
they believed to be the almost certainly impending 
revolution ; others exulted in the very same prospect, 
and believed that an English revolution would 
form a fitting second volume to the French 
Revolution, then fresh in the memory of many. 

It was to this England that Sir William returned 
on the eve of his majority in March 1831. 
Ardent and enthusiastic in everything, a keen 
advocate of the principles of the Reform Bill, he 

> Liji afTrtKh FItct, \>j Gnlum Wallu, p. 197. 



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II ENTRANCE INTO POLITICAL LIFE jj 

could not come within the circuit of the great 
flame of feeling in England without taking Hght 
from it, and without also throwing his brand 
into the conflagration. He immediately identifled 
himself with the popular feeling for Reform. 
Mrs. Grote wrote : " He disliked aristocratic 
institutions, detested ecclesiastical government, felt 
earnestly the injustice and wrong under which 
the bulk of the English people suffered, and 
longed to asust in bringing about a healthier 
and more just scheme of domestic administra- 
tion." It was nothing to him that the Reform 
Bill proposed to extinguish the large number of 
rotten boroughs in bis native county, for some 
of which his forefathers had sat in Parliament. 
His friend Charles Buller, who was in the unre- 
formed Parliament in 1830-32, as member for 
Looe, voted in 183 1 for the extinction of his own 
borough. Molesworth would have done the same 
in the same circilmstances. His political conduct 
was never influenced by personal considerations, 
and he heartily supported Lord Grey's declaration 
that representation and not nomination should be 
the principle of the reformed House of Commons. 
The Reform Bill of 1831 proposed to extinguish 
60 rotten boroughs and to deprive 168 boroughs 
of their members. Within a few days of Sr 
William's return to England, 23rd March 1831, 
this Bill, amid a scene of unparalleled excitement, 



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36 SIR WILUAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

passed its second reading in the House of Gsmmons 
by a majority of i only, the numbers being 302 
to 303. Macaulay took part in the debate 
and division and wrote a description of the scene 
to his friend Ellis. He said that the memory of 
it would remun fresh and sharp in his mind after 
fifty years, but it is perhaps fortunate for us that 
he wrote his vivid account within a week of the 
event *' It was like," he wrote,* " seong Ca-sar 
stabbed in the Senate House or sewng Oliver take 
the mace ^om the table ; a sight to be seen only 
once and never to be forgotten." He describes 
the frenzied exdteraent in the House of Commons 
as the numbers of the division were read out ; how 
men laughed and cried and shouted and shook 
hands and clapped each other on the back, and 
ran huzzaing through the lobbies down into the 
crowd which had waited up all night till four in 
the morning to hear the result of the division ; 
how the cabmen shouted to the senators, " Is the 
Bill carried, sir ? " and on receiving the answer 
" Yes, by one," cried " Thank God for it ! " 

Those who have seen their phl^matic country- 
men similarly moved by political excitement can 
easily reproduce the scene and conjure up the 
emotions which produced it. 

A majority of i on the second reading was 
quickly followed by defeat in Committee, and the 

1 TrevdTU'i Liji ifl^ri Metmiof, voL u p. >oi. 



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II ENTRANCE INTO POUTICAL LIFE 37 

Ministers instantly resolved on a dissolution of 
Parliament. The decision was come to suddenly, 
and the King's consent was hurriedly obtained. 
The move was so rapid that there was no time to 
fetch the state coach and the cream-coloured 
horses. The King is said to have declared his 
readiness to go down to Westminster, if needs 
were, in a hackney cab. A messenger was sent 
post-haste to the Tower to fetch the crown and to 
gather tt^ther such attendants as could be found 
to wait upon His Majesty. In the midst of a 
violent anti-reform speech by Peel in the House of 
Commons the guns were heard announcing the 
arrival of the King. At each explosion there 
was a tumultuous cheer from the ranks of the 
Government, and Peel was still speaking, in the 
midst of every kind of uproar, when Black Rod 
was heard knocking at the door to summon the 
Commons to the House of Lords. There the pro- 
ceedings were still more violent and outrageous ; 
those who were present told Greville that it was 
like the scene of the Oath of the Tennis Court, and 
the whole proceedings seemed exactly like the 
preparatory days of a revolution. In the robing 
room the King, who had not then been crowned, 
insisted on wearing the crown and on placing it 
himself upon his head. George Villiers told 
Greville that he had never beheld such a scene as 
the one he looked on that day in the House 



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38 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH CHAf. 

of Lords, when he saw the Kir^ on the throne, 
with the crown askew upon his head, and the tall 
grim figure of Lord Gireyby his side with the 
sword of state in his hand. It seemed to Villiers 
to picture forthcoming events and to be a pre- 
monition of revolution and the execution of the 
King.* 

The writs for the new Parliament were issued in 
April 1831, too soon for Sir William MoleswcHth 
to offer himself as a candidate, for he did not 
attain his majority till 23rd May of the same year. 
But he had no sooner reached Gsrnwall than he 
made his sympathy with the Reform movement 
known, and he was abnost immediately invited to 
stand for East Cornwall in the following year 
in the event of the Reform Bill passing. He 
consented, and wrote at once to his mother, who 
was still in Italy, " to come home as soon as you 
can and enjoy the sport." In a later letter he told 
her of the strong feeling for reform among the 
voters of East Cornwall. " In the present state of 
excitement," he said, " half measures are of no 
avwl. Aristocrat or Liberal, I am confident if I 
were of the other party" [i.e. opposed to reform] 
" I could not command a ^ngle vote amongst my 
tenantry ; however, we are now hand and glove." 
He, and his friends on his behalf, made a thorough 
canvass of the constituency and were assured that 

' GrtvUk Mtmurt, voL ii, pp, i]S-i4i, 



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. ' !. -, . -.v::--'; r.- m.v ;!■- K-,-..f i>r. tr.i ['<•■ 

-:■■:' I'j-i.-'- • ■' :.'„,,'. iiT... ' , hp sidv wirh .. . 
•, ,vu . -r ■-,.. ^ ill ; ■. .-i.il.;. it hecm..^ to Vi!l;i.: 
■■i [.'■- . rt- r-'-.n •;:■..;, >.'vc its and to [>c .i pr 
::. ■■ .'." ,.r :-■ .J.-*.; ■: u^-l the cxcc-'tHJii of t-' 

I „■ ■ ii'; f,- ■ i-'.L -Li-ii \'if\- :i .ci.i were issued ' 
'V|i!:I i-- .'.iM'.--:' or .'■i'' v\ s''.;m "vloleswo! : 
'.) •■ .-r .^;.,v-:t :-7 a :.: ■k;^:.\o, r>r !it did i.-, 
.'■■ V , i- ■= r. i -t :;.-'■-- r ■ ^' '■' ■■r'Jit: iEiie \cir 
ivj ' <■ K:i i;') ^■, :;;i;' rj.n.. •:.■ t ')r-,-,v«Jl than ■ : 
'v;-'., ! 'i '.v'-/:'-'''/ vji"' !'■■ Ui::"nn move.n-.i ■ 
k.'-v ., I ■.' '■;■.>-'■ -.hr, I- r. .i'i,neii.atc!v invit-d ■.. 
•I.' : f-'i y. ■' i. ■.■■■■.;'■ ■■■ the l"'iiiowing ve-. 
n t'j V ■.: r '■' :r- i'c..-r- ■ i;''i ;Ms-:i!-ig. H, 
' ■'. ■••'■ '.. .1 '., ^- ■,t- '•' f-:c. -j.t h;s n(orl)::r, wh 
1- !■■ -■.';! .'I i ." . . ■ to T' :\;; '■. ;; f ■ :- S'.:o?i as ■■-'■ 
. ■ . ■ : ..;■:',; -'r; " ^r. .: I .!-T iviter ht t-i.: 

■.■■' : I i 1 .1-1 C'^'i-r ■■ -ii:. ■■ 'ii t:;^ ; .i-xvt ;t:ttc . . 

• ^. ■•. ;■. rit/' ,;. '-ii..' r;-' vuiv- ar? .-.f *;. 

•■..■■! '\r. ■■■■■■ - v.r I'-'nyr.'., l v.i o^ ■: iiTl ir' ■ 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 






n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



(ji-vGooglc 



II ENTRANCE INTO POLITICAL UFE 39 

he could count on a big majority. He must have 
been a very strong candidate. His hereditary 
connection with the constituency gave him an 
advantage irom the outset. His style of speaking 
marked the man : impassioned to the point of 
imprudence and often beyond it, but not frothy ; 
he always knew his facts well and never spoke but 
on a solid sutntructure of study and reflection. 
In the words of a near relative, " an undercurrent 
of energy and action 6owed deep and strong 
beneath a delicate and aristocratic person, which in 
no wise displeased the masses, ever glad to be led 
by a gentleman."' His address to the electors 
was issued in June 1832. It is short and to the 
point. It prodiumed him to be an out-and-out 
Reformer. He promised to support " every 
species of just and salutary Reform in Church and 
State." He advocated National Education, the 
abandonment of the taxes on newspapers, and the 
abolition of Slavery, and he pledged himself to 
give a discriminating support to Lord Grey's 
Government. " I will support them," he said, '* as 
long as they shall persevere in their present honest 
and enlightened pjolicy." He probably had a pre- 
monition that his future relations with the Whig 
Government would not be characterised by un- 

I From u aD|Hiblkbed (ketch written bjr Sir Williim Molawotth'* 
brotli0-in-Uw, Mr. Rkbud Ford, mthor of the well-ksown HmJiict tj 



n,gN..(jNGoogle 



40 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. j 

broken cordiality. His friend Charles Buller had 
been in the House of Commons for two years 
before the passing of the Reform Bill. All that 
Buller had learned during those two years of the 
ways and doings of the Whigs was probably at his 
friend's disposal ; and according to Buller the 
Whigs of his day were "a heartless, spiritless 
canaille," an opinion which Molesworth very soon 
shared and corroborated from his own experience. 
In the £rst few years of his House of Commons 
life he very seldom refers to the Whigs in home 
letters, or in other ^miliar correspondence, with- ] 
out some such ejaculation as *' miserable brutes^" 
or "slippery dogs," or others even less parlia- 
mentary. The fight between him and the Whigs 
was of the sort that is always going on between 
the enthusiastic advocates for reform working on 
first principles, and hand-to-mouth politicians who 
will do nothing that they are not absolutely 
compelled to do by fear of losing power and 
place. 

In the General Election of 1832 Sir William 
Molesworth was returned unopposed for the 
constituency of East Cornwall, his colleague 
being Mr. William Salusbury Trelawney.' His 
friend Charles Buller was returned at the same 

' It wu Sir Williiin'i intention, if bii unbitiMi to lit ia Pu-liuuait lad 
beta thwuted, to eury mt tht tcheme of Eutem tn*d which had w 
•trenglj attnctcd him dnring hit reridcncc in Rome. 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



It ENTRANCE INTO POLITICAL UFE 41 

time for the constituency of Uskeard, which he 
represented till his death. 

A firm political and personal friendship was 
established between Molesworth and Bulter, 
tempered occasionally but never seriously inter- 
rupted by Molesworth's fears that Buller was 



HR WILUAM UOLEiWOHTH, AOED II. 

growing " Whiggish," and by Buller's efforts to 
moderate the ardour of Molesworth's onslaught on 
Whigs in general. Particular Whigs, such as the 
Whigs in Cornwall or the Whigs in office, Buller 
was willing to throw to the wolves, but from time to 
time he checked Molesworth's disposition to make 
public attacks on all Whigs, lock, stock and barrel. 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



4a ■ SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

On his establishment in London, in 1833, for the 
first sesaon of the Reformed Parliament, Moles- 
worth quickly showed the temper that was to 
characterise his political life by voting against the 
Government of which he was a nominal supporter. 
He voted against them twit^ on amendments to 
the Address, and writes to his mother : " The 
debate, thank God, will finish to-night and you 
will find my name in another minority." The 
occaaon of his opposition was the proposal to 
bring in a new C>ercion Bill for Ireland, and he 
writes fervently :— 

I will oppose this infernal Bill engendered in Hell 
[>.«. the House of Lords] to the last. . . . Ever yours on 
this subject most unhappy ; on all other ones, so-so. 

William Molbsworth. 

Though he so ardently opposed coercion in 
Ireland, he never supported the Repeal movement. 
He said of himself that he was a RacHcal, not a 
Revolutionist ; he would never allow himself to be 
called a follower of Cobbctt or O'Conncll or any 
one else. " I will vote with them," he would say, 
** when to the best of my judgment they are right." 

He was very sensitive to the awe-inspiring 
qualities of the House of Commons, and wrote 
home that "it takes immense courage to rise in 
the House ; " he says he intends to break the ice 
by making short speeches on presenting petitions, 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



II ENTRANCE INTO POLITICAL LIFE 4) 

taking the opportunity of doing so when " atten- 
tion is slack and no one Hstens, which is an 
immense advantage for us tinud and incipient 
orators." Descrilring one of these occasions he 
told his ^ster Ellizabeth that he was so alarmed 
he could hardly stand. He discovers, however, 
that "provided you do not call the Speaker a 
blackguard or the members of the House »x 
hundred rascals, you can say what you like." It 
strikes one that there were very few places where 
Sir WilUam did not say what he liked. Early in 
the session of 1833 he attended a Parliamentary 
dinner given by Lord John Russell and was 
pleased to find that at least half of his fellow- 
guests had opposed the Irish Bill. Molesworth 
argued with Lord John in defence of the Ballot 
and other Radical measures which " Finality John " 
had not then seen his way to support. 

Molcsworth's Tory uncle in Cornwall, who 
had taken a natural pride in the <x>mpliment pud 
to his nephew in being returned unopposed for 
East Cornwall, soon began to exhibit signs of 
uneasiness at the votes the young member was 
giving against the Government, and the way in 
which he was identifying himself with what was 
then conMdered extreme Radicalism. The Rev. 
William Molesworth wrote to his nephew and 
namesake that his conduct was causing grave 
dissatisfaction in the constituency and that he was 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



44 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

seriously imperiUing his scat. The younger man 
replied with a long letter (Feb. 1833) in his own 
' defence, and showed the courage and determination 
which never throughout his Parliamentary life 
failed him on similar occasions. He asked his 
uncle to inform any of his constituents who might 
complMn of the votes he was giving that — 

I consider myself 2. trustee, and that I am to execute 
my trust to the best of my abilities and judgment. Xhe 
moment the majority of my constituents consider my 
opinions to be diiTerent from theirs, the moment they 
wish me to resign, they need not fear lest I should insist 
on the septennial lease which I am afraid the present 
Parliament will not shorten. 

His sister Elizabeth was both in politics and 
othdt subjects completely in sympathy with him. 
She drew an amusing picture of the Tory uncle 
perambulating the county defending the two 
Radical votes of the new member ; but the com- 
pliuning constituents, at this time at any rate, appear 
to have been more imaginary than real, and Sir 
William felt rather a^;rieved that he had been 
drawn into writing a long ai^umentative letter, 
when " a few words would have sufficed for him, 
as I know his inaccesabUity to argument." 
" Crabbed age and youth cannot live tc^ther," 
especially when age is a Tory clergyman and 
youth is a Radical M.P., but notwithstanding 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



ti ENTRANCE INTO POLITICAL LIFE 45 

some coolness between the two there was never z 
positive break in their friendly relations. 

The whole tendency of Sir William Moles- 
worth's mind made him a Reformer, and his 
education had only strengthened his natural 
disposition. Scotch and German metaphysics 
made him a liberal thinker in the realm of theology 
as well as in that of politics. The opportunity he 
had had of seeing several of the small courts of 
Germany and Italy made him a Liberal in European 
politics. The Rev. William Molesworth in his 
Cornish rectory was not able to exercise any 
authority of a kind calculated to counteract all 
these influences, even if they had not been 
reinforced, as they now were, by the society in 
which Sir William mixed in London. Accounts 
of him at this period of his life agree in describing 
him as angularly attractive in appearance and 
manners. General Straton wrote to Lady Moles- 
worth a short letter of congratulation on the 
favourable impres^on he had created in his first 



From members of all parties I bear, though of course 
politics differ, a most fevourable account of William's 
talents. ... I may congratulate you on his being a 
rising and promising young man. ... He is in cafHtal 
health . . . and really is a handsome young man with 
exceedingly good air and manners. 

In a later letter General Straton again eiqiressed 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



46 SIR WILUAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

to Lady Molesworth the same favourable impres- 
sion : — 

I see no frivolity or silly vanity about him, and, as 
to bis political start, a straightforward, independent 
course is in my mind at least that which bids lairest for 
fame. 

Mrs. Grote describes him at the same period 
as being surprisingly accomplished for his age, and 
speaks of the animation of his countenance lending 
a singular charm to his whole appearance. More 
weighty perhaps than either of the two witnesses 
just quoted is the testimony of Carlyle to the 
same eiFect. In a letter to his mother (30th May 
1834) he wrote describing a dinner at the Bullers*, 
at which he had seen various notable persons : — 

Radical members and such like . . . [There is a 
note to this, " No poison in the Radicals. If little appre* 
hension of positive truth, no wilful uking up with 
felschood."] among whom a young, very rich man, 
named Sir William Molesworth, pleased me considerably. 
We have met since, and shall probably see much more of 
one another. He seems very honest ; needs, or will need, 
guidance much, and with it may do not a little good. I 
liked the frank manners of the yoimg man ; so beautiful 
in contrast with Scottish gigmanity. I pitied his dark- 
ness of mind, and heartily wished him well. He is, 
among other things, a vehement smoker of tobacco.' 

Whether we pity the darkness of his mind, with 
Carlyle, or admire his surprising accomplishments, 

' Fnnile'i Gtrlfli, vaL L'. p. 44S. 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



u ENTRANCE INTO POLITICAL LIFE 47 

with Mrs. Grote, it is imposnble to read these 
descriptioDS without a perception of a very at- 
tractive personality, and it is difficult to believe 
that " a young, very rich man," with the qualities 
which may be inferred from the foregoing extracts, 
could not have mixed in any society London 
afforded. Sir 'William Molesworth, however, 
appears on his arrival in London to have concnved 
the idea that the Radicals of 1832 had to pay for 
their political triumph in carrying the Reform Bill 
by social ostracism. He avcMded ordinary society. 
"Nothing," he wrote in 1833, in reference to an 
invitation to a great house which he had declined, 
<* will induce me to expose myself to the annoyance 
of mixing with those who hate and fear and would 
despise us Radicals if they dared." According to 
his own account he went nowhere as iar as 
ordinary sodety was concerned. But a more 
probable reason for "going nowhere" can be 
discovered in the fact that almost immediately on 
coming to London he was introduced to the 
sodety of the Grotes, Bentham, James and John 
Mill, etc. ; the Bullers he already knew well and 
was frequently their guest. " Going nowhere " 
should therefore be interpreted that he went into 
the society he really enjoyed, rather than into the 
rush of fashionable gaieties. He was also at this 
time very frequendy a guest in the house of his 
physician. Dr. Elliotson. In Sir William's letters 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



48 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

home he refers to constant social and professional 
visits from his doctor. Sometimes the social and 
profesMonal merge into one another. Dr. EUiot- 
son and he are, he says, " great friends. He came 
four times to see me when I was ill and would 
only take one soveragn, as he said he liked to 
converse with me." 

Sir William also made the acquaintance of 
Lady Byron, and wrote to his sister Elizabeth : — 

I like her much ; she is a calm^ dignified and certainly 
very clever person ; expresses herself remarkably well and 
clearly, rather stem in manners. We got on very well, 
as she is almost a Radical and we talked on education. 
You know I like theory but do not care much about 
practice, and you will laugh at my inspecting several 
dozen dirty urchins. 

His introduction to the Grotes early in his first 
ses^on soon developed into a warm and intimate 
friendship. Mrs. Grote has left two accounts of 
her first meeting with him. According to one of 
them her husband, George Grote, afterwards the 
historian of Greece, then the Radical member for 
the City of London, sdd to her early in the first 
ses»on of the Reformed Parliament ; " Harriet, 
there is a young man who sometimes talks to me 
on our side of the House, of whom I have formed 
rather a good opinion ; he is a Cornish baronet of 
the name of Sir William Molesworth and sits for 
his native county. I should like to bring him 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



Ji ENTRANCE INTO POLITICAL LIFE 49 

here and introduce him to you." Soon after, Mr. 
Grote brought Sir William home to tea, and he 
made a very favourable impression on both 
husband and wife. According to the other 
account, Mrs. Grote's first introduction to Sir 
William took place in the lantern of the House of 
Commons on the 4th February 1833, the day 
when Grote delivered his maiden speech in fnvour 
of the ballot In the old House of Commons the 
only place where ladies could hear a debate was 
a circular opening on the roof, used for purposes 
of ventilation ; around this some ten or twelve 
persons mi^t be placed so as to hear, and, to a 
limited extent, to see, what passed in the House. 
It was here that Mrs. Grote listened to her 
husband's eloquence and breathed the bad air of 
the House of Commons. She describes in The 
Personal Ufe of George Grote the great success of 
his ^Mech, and adds : " Immediatdy afterwards a 
young membtt' joined me upsturs, on the roof of 
the House ; mth a voice half stifled with emotion 
he poured out his admiration of Grote's perform- 
anoe, adding that in listening to the ^leech he 
had eicperienced a SOTt of feeling made up of 
envy and despiur : ' For,' said he, * I am persuaded 
that I shall never make any approach to Grote's 
excellence.' " This was William Molesworth, aged 
twenty-three. Mrs. Grote, like Carlyle, was 
pleased by the frank manners of the young man. 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



so SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

The two accounts are not inconsistent with one 
another to any important extent, and the events 
they record probably happened in sequence, and 
formed the early stages of an intimate friendship. 
Grote at that time was, in his wife's stately 
language, " in the meridian of life, having reached 
his thirty-eighth year." ... Sir William, "yet in 
the flower of his youth and destined soon to 
become the disciple of his elder colleague, was but 
slightly indebted to others for the instruction he 
had acquired. He had l^d up, chiefly by private 
study, no incon^derable store of learning and 
scientific knowledge, but, in regard to mental 
philosophy and political doctrine, he might be 
said to bring into public life, as it were, a virgin 
intellect." 

The Grotes were perhaps too much inclined 
to look upon Molesworth as a pu^nl and disdple, 
and did not sufficiently allow for the strong native 
independence of his character. Mrs. Grote refers 
with evident satbfaction to an incident which 
shows Sir William entirely in the character of 
Grote's pupil. There was a division on the subject 
of the itult-tax, and nearly all the Radical members 
voted for its abolition : Grote and Molesworth 
alone of their party voting for its retention. 
Shortly afterwards the Radicals in the House per- 
ceived that they had given an injudicious vote, and 
one of them asked Molesworth bow he had come to 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



II ENTRANCE INTO POLITICAL UFE $1 

see so clearly what was the wise course. " Well, 
I did not see it," replied Sir William, "... but I 
saw Grote going out, and I followed him, because 
I was afraid to vote otherwise than he did ; but I 
own to you that 1 did so with fear and trembling." 
However sweet such homage may have been to 
Grote from one whose character was frank and 
independent in no common degree, it was impos- 
sible that such blind obedience should last. The 
younger man was destined to make his own way and 
take his own line, and the passage Irom the attitude 
c^ imquestioning discipleship to that of resolute 
independence was not accomplished without strain 
on the friendship which subsisted between them. 
No trace of this is, however, to be found in the 
earlier stages. Molesworth was as ready to give, 
as the Grotes to receive, unstinted admiration and 
esteem. In a letter to his mother written on 5th 
March 1833 he s^d, describing his life in the 
House of G>mmons : — 

Grote, the City member, is the pcraon whom I like 
the most. I frequently drink tea with him. His wife 
is one of the cleverest women I ever met. 

Carlyle has left one of his biting, acid portraits 
of Grote: 

Radical Grote was the only novelty, for I had never 
noticed him before — a man with a straight upper lip, large 
chin and open mouth (spout mouth) ; for the rest, a tall 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



5* SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH cmat. 

man with dull thoughtful brows and lank dishevelled hair, 
greatly the look ofa prosperous Dissenting minister."^ 

The picture is vivid and explains much, as does 
also a little note from Charles BuUer to Mrs. 
Austin, describing a second House of Commons 
speech by Grote on the Ballot in 1835, when his 
motion was seconded by Molesworth. Buller 
wrote : "Molesworth's speech was angular, but the 
House liked its manliness very much. Grote's 
was capital in his cold, correct style."* 

The ardent disciple voting for the continuance 
of the malt-tax for no other reason than that Grote 
was doing so, was by January 1 837 writing to his 
mother : " I have declared myself independent 
of the Grote clique. There is anything but 
harmony amongst us. In private they agree with 
me ; in public they prwse the Whigs," etc. How- 
ever, this was the little rift within the lute, and 
the music of friendship was not silenced until 
several years later. 

The impression made by young Molesworth on 
the older Radicals who had fought the great fight 
which ended in the paswng of the Reform Bill of 
1832 is evident from a letter from Joseph Parkes 
to Mrs. Grote, dated 1 834, in wMch he says that in 
his opinion Molesworth's was the only "leading 
public nund " which the great Reform movement 

I Froude'i CtrljU, ig]4>Si, vol. i. p. 144. 
* nm Ctttrtlinu ^En^alHBtmm, vol. i. p. 90, 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



It ENTRANCE INTO POUTICAL LIFE 53 

had produced in the House of Commons, " that is 
to say, the only propelling mind there who did not 
participate in the glorious puU " necessary to pass 
the Reform Bill. He goes on to speak of the 
" immense shove " which Molesworth, then about 
twenty-four years old, had given to the Ballot and 
other Radical measures, and to his generalship of 
the Reformers throughout the country. It is a 
remarkable testimony from a middle-aged man to 
one who in years was hardly more than a boy. 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



CHAPTER III 



"THE LONDON REVIEW 



Molesworth's enthu»asm for triennial Parlia- 
ments was soon put to a practical test, for Lord 
Grey's administration of 1832 only lasted two 
years, and there was another General Election at the 
end of 1834 and the beginning of 1835. Moles- 
worth was again returned unopposed for East 
Cornwall. In his second election address he gave 
a prominent place to his advocacy of Free Trade 
and of National Education. In his second ses»on, 
on 3rd June 1834, he had made what was 
practically his maiden speech in seconding Roe- 
buck's motion on education. He had then ui^d 
on the Government the duty of providing suitable 
education for every child in the United Kingdom ; 
he also dwelt on the importance of raising the 
social status of the teaching profession and of not 
letting it remain what it then was, the refuge of 
the destitute. With this end in view he pressed 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



cHAP.ni "THE LONDON REVIEW" 55 

for the establishment of training colleges. The 
Lancastrian pupil-teacher system he regarded only 
as a pis-aJkr, and urged the Government to make 
themselves acqu^nted with what was being done 
in France and other European countries to pro- 
mote national education. Finally, he expressed his 
firm opinion that popular education should not be 
placed under the excluuve control of the clergy. 

Up to the year 1834 hardly anything had been 
done by the Government to promote education. 
In that year a small b^inning was made in the 
form of a Parliamentary grant of ^20,000. In 
the follomng year an additional grant of j^io,ooo 
was made to provide truning schools for teachers. 
But even these small grants met with considerable 
Parliamentary opposition, and there were M.P.'s 
who loved to prove, to their own satisfaction, that 
in those districts where there was least education 
there was also least crime, desiring the House to 
infer that ignorance was the parent of innocence. 
On this temper Molesworth made constant war. 
Again and again, to his constituents, in the House 
of Commons and in the country, he urged the 
importance, nay, the positive duty of making 
adequate proviuon for education. But many years 
passed before his warnings were heeded. As late 
as 1845 Molesworth ptnnted out to his constituents 
that the whole Parliamentary grant for education 
in the United Kingdom in that year was only 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



$6 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH cr«. 

jf 30,000, or less than a third of what was granted 
annually by the single State of Massachusetts with 
a population of less than a million. The annual 
grants for primary education in the United 
Kingdom amounted in 1900 to more than 
;^ 1 1,000,000, a figure which no one feels to be 
too great, while it certainly illustrates the absurd 
inadequacy of the ^^30,000 which satisfied the 
Parliamentary conscience not much more than half 
a century ago. In this, as in so many other 
questions, Motesworth was in advance of his age, 
for it was not till fifteen years after his death that 
national education was dealt with in the Act of 
1870 in a statesmanlike spirit. 

But it was in spite, rather than in consequence, 
of his pioneer spirit that Molesworth was returned 
a second time for East Cornwall without opposi- 
tion. He wrote to his sister Elizabeth in 1834 
that the Ministry were gradually, quiedy nnking, 
and that his confidence in them had been reduc«l 
to zero. He added : — 

I am neither surprised nor annoyed that Whig and 
Tory magnates [in Cornwall] should be against me. 
. . . The aristocratic {vinciplcs of Whig and Tory ate 
equally hateful to me. I refer them to my speeches and 
declarations to see whether I have changed my principles. 
I know they did not believe me and were convinced I 
should swtm with the stream. They find themselves in 
the wrong j let them throw me out if they can. 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



HI "THE LONDON REVIEW 57 

In his address to the electors of East Cornwall, 
dated 1st January 1 835, he says, after a few intro- 
ductory sentences : — 

If I were merely to state that I am a Reformer, I 
should use a denomination which now embraces aQ 
political parties. To explain my sentiments more clearly 
I must inform you that there is much which require* to 
be altered and amended in the institutions of this Empire. 
My wish is to preserve and strengthen whatever is good j 
to introduce it where it docs not exist ; and to destroy 
whatever is bad. 

He then spediies his support of the Ballot, 
Triennial Parliaments, Free Trade, National 
Education and Tithe Commutation. 

No opponent entered the lists agunst him, but 
there were serious desertions from the ranks of his 
supporters, and he began to feel the position as 
member for the county " with hardly a gentleman 
to support me " as unsatis^ory and painful. The 
dissolution of 1834-35 came very suddenly upon 
the country, and the constituencies generally were 
unprepared for it; but by 1836 Sr William had 
fully determined not to offer himself again for 
East Cornwall, and very soon after the General 
Election he was actively engaged in looking out for 
another constituency. 

The rapid l»«ak-up of the lai^ majority 
returned to support Lord Grey's administration of 
1832 was chiefly caused by the incongruous 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



SS SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH cbap. 

elements of which it Wits composed. The Whigs 
believed that the 1832 Reform Bill was the ne 
plus ultra of political enfranchisement ; the Radicals 
regarded it as merely a small step in the direction 
in which they wished to travel. The Rascals con- 
sequently were fighting the Whigs quite as stoutly 
as they were fighting the Tories, and with a great 
deal more acrimony. The Radicals felt themselves 
hampered at bvery turn for want of support in the 
press ; and they also felt the need of a club to be 
a meeting-place and rallying-point for their party. 
These two wants young Molesworth, with charac- 
teristic energy and munificence, set himself to 
supply. 

The Philosophic Radicals did not venture on 
starting a d^y paper of their own. Their organ 
was to be a review. It was christened THt London 
Review, and John Stuart Mill was the first editor. 
Support was promised by James Mill, Carlyle, 
Roebuck, the Austins, Peacock, Buller and the 
Grotes. The question of the ecUtorshtp seems to 
have been left open at the outset, for Carlyle had 
considerable hopes of the choice falling on himself 
and wrote to his mother to tell her so. It is 
worth remembering that John Stuart Mill, as 
editor of the Review, suggested to Carlyle in 1838 
that he should write on Cromwell. Up to that 
time Carlyle had not given any special attention to 
the subject, and shared the then prevuling opinion 



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Ill "THE LONDON REVIEW" 59 

of Cromwell, looking upon htm as a hypocrite and 
time-server, using his religion as a cloak for his 
personal ambition. A blunder on the part of 
Mill's sub-editcn-, who, during Mill's absence, wrote 
a note to Carlyle to tell Mm not to go on as " he 
meant to do Cromwell himself," infuriated the sage 
of Chelsea to such a d^ree that he severed his 
connection with the Review at once and entirely.' 
Carlyle's volume. Letters and Speeches of Oliver 
Cromwell^ resulted partly from N^'s suggestion 
and partly from the subsequent quarrel. But the 
sub-editorial offence was not committed till four 
years after the start of the Review. Carlyle's 
vexation at not bdng chosen editor and the incident 
just named must be taken into account in weighing 
his later comments on the undertaking : ** Mill is 
plodding along at his dull Review under dull 
ausjHces," etc. Carlyle left, however, in his 
Reminiscences, written after 1867, a vivid aca)unt 
of Sa William Molesworth's munificent way of 
setting the new m^azine afloat : " ' How much 
will your Review take to launch it, then ? ' asked he 
(all other Radical believers being so close of fist). 
' Say ,£4000,' answered MilL ' Here then,' writing 
a cheque for that amount, rejoined the other." 

■ The entrr In CvljiteHdiirjfi {December il]S]i "To beedited brhim 
[RobertMO the nb-editor] ind bf Hill ind the Beuthimic formnli ! Ob 
hcivau t It ii woTM tlun Algien and Xcfro OdIuu. NoUub| •hoct of 
dcsth iboold drive ■ white nun t« it I " 



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fo SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chaf. 

John Mill's account of the same transaction in hts 
autobiography corroborates Carlyle's : — 

In the summer of 1834 [he writes], Sir William 
Molesworth, himself a laborious student and a precise and 
metaphysical thinker capable of aiding the cause by his 
pen as well as by his purse, proposed to establish a Review 
provided I would consent to be the real, if I could not be 
the ostensible editor. 

Molesworth's private letters of 1834 and 1835 
are full of his hopes and projects about the Review. 
To his sister Mary (now Mrs. Ford) he wrote in 
the highest spirits just before the appearance of 
the first number. His letter U such a good 
specimen of his home correspondence that we give 
it in full. It has perhaps more of the roystering 
schoolboy described by Carlyle' than the laborious 
student and precise metaphpical thinker of J. S. 
Mill, but it is not so very uncommon to combine 
the characters, and some readers may feel that the 
mixture is more attractive than either taken 
separately. 

[Probable date, eKtly spring 1835.] 
My dear wise Dot, — I send you a pamphlet said to 
be written by Lord Brougham in order that you may leam 

' In TebtoMTj 1I35 Carlyle ilcKribci in hii diary a part; it the BuUen': 
" Roebnck Rabapiem wu there, an acrid, naty, barreo charaeta, etc. . . . 
..Au inn 10W fFaig. Sir William Moleaworth with the air of a gockd 
rejntering tcboolboy pleaaed me cooaiileralil}' taaa. A man of rank can 
•till <lo thia, forget hia rank wboUj, and be the aooaer eateemed ht luTiag 



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Ill "THE LONDON REVIEW" 6i 

what sort of Christians Lords and Ladies are. It U not 
very good, but it is good enough for you j if there ii any- 
thing difficult for you to understand, get Elizabeth to 
explain it. Tell my Mother that I will write to her all 
about everything in a day or two. The following is all 
the news I have. 

1. It is a fog. 

2. Ixird Canterbury, the man what we kicked out of 
the chair, is going to inspect the Canadians. 

3. Lord Londonderry has rcfiised to go to St. 
Petersburg. 

4. I dined at Mrs. Buller't yesterday. 

5. The round of beef is very good. 

6. There is to be a great dinner to Lord John on 
Saturday, and I intend to go. 

7. The Whigs and Radicals are fook. Myself and 
Roebuck the only wise men in and the two Mills the 
only wise men out of the House, 

8. I am excessively obliged to Miss Dietz' for her cap. 

9. Therefore Tht Lendm Review will be the best of 
all Reviews, eicher past, present or future. N.B. If you 
understand Ic^c (if not, ask Tommy the meaning of the 
word) you will perceive that No, g ought to follow 
No. 7. 

10. Mr. Duppa is very well and is painting Roebuck.* 

11. Grote has put off till God knows when his 
motion on the Ballot, and ought to be hanged for it 

12. The worsteds are difficult to get. 

13. Roebuck was not out of temper when he spoke 
on Canada. 



t Pmarraw : lito one, \ij the ume Klf-t*ught 



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62 SIR WILLIAM MOLBSWORTH chap. 

14. Dissencers arc to be married b^ the magistrate. 

15. The weather is clearing up. 

1 6. I ride one day and drive another. 

17. I am going to Mrs. Grote's this evening, 11 Pall 
Man. 

18. The Queen [a new mare] goes admirably in 
harness. 

19. The streets are very dirty. 

20. Alderman Wood has brought in a bill against 
omnibuses and I intend to bring in a bill gainst gentle- 
men's carriages. 

21. I go frequently to the India House. 

22. I drove over a man, for which he cursed me. 
I drove back and gave him a sovereign, for which he 
blessed me. 

23. I am smoking a cigar. 

24. The lists on the malt-tax are very incorrect. 
Strutt, Roebuck, etc, voted in the majority, as did all 
the philosophic reformers, 

25. I have nothing more to say. 

26. "I am what I am "and "what" is your affec- 
tionate brother, William Molesworth. 

P.S. Impan in strict confidence and eternal secrecy 
the contents of this letter to my mother, to Elizabeth, to 
Miss Dietz, to Tommy, etc, etc 
72 Pill Mill, TimrtJay. 

In a more senous strain he had written from 
Pencarrow the previous autumn (October 1834) 
to Mrs. Grote : — 

I have been living a great deal in the world and on 
horseback. Years have elapsed since I led so reckless a 



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Ill "THE LONDON REVIEW" 63 

life. In spite of it — in spite of the deepest potations — 
in spite of the severest fatigue — I never was to well in 
mj life ! Some dme will elapse^ I am afiaid, ere your 
prognostic will be fiiUillcd that I shall not live long. 
Indeed I have just (x>mmenced Plato, in the Greek, 
though I have not opened a Greek book for ten years. I 
intend to peruse Aristotle and him previous to my 
dqiartuFc to the land of shades. I have not been idle, 
however ; I have an article. Dee (John Mill) voUhU^ 
tor the Review, which is, I hope, prospering. John is in 
such spirits that he says he would make it succeed single- 
handed. Old Mill will write, conscf]uently we shall be 
** 'spcctablc." * 

It will be noticed from the letter just quoted 
that John Mill held a strict control over all articles 
in the Review notwithstanding the linandat support 
given to it by Molesworth. In another letter a 
year later, aodi October 1835, he tells Mrs. Grote 
that " I am rather out of humour with John for 
reftising my article on Lord Brougham." " Cer- 
tainly," he adds, " it was too violently sarcastic and 
rather dry" There was a diiFerencc of opinion, 
too, between Mill and Molesworth as to the value 
of literary articles. One of the lasting distinctions 
of The London Review is an article in the second 
number by John Mill, warmly appreciative of 
Poems by Two Brothers (1827), by the Tennysons, 
of Poems, ehiefiy Lyrical (1830), and of Poems 

t luigiuiie, in Bw by the 



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64 SIR WILUAM MOLESWORTH cha*. 

by Alfred Tennyson (1832) ; It was the first really 
generous public recognition of the new poet. 
Molesworth made no secret of his want of sym- 
pathy with John Mill's taste in Uterature. Of a 
later article by J. S. Mill on De Tocqueville, 
Molesworth wrote : " It is rather better than the 
Tennyson, though it might be better still." These 
differences, however, made no break in the close 
fiiend^p between the two young men. 

The pecuniary indebtedness of the periodical to 
Molesworth was not confined to the transaction 
described by Carlyle ; there was another Radical 
Review in existence, known as The WestmimteT^ 
which had been founded in 1824 by Bentham and 
the elder Mill ; it soon passed into the hands first 
of Mr. (afterwards Sir John) Bowring, then into 
those of General Perronet Thompson, author of 
the Anti-Corn Law Catechism. The existence of 
another Radical Review was prejudicial to the 
success of the newly-established London, and exactly 
a year after the appearance of the first number, 
April 1835, Sir William Molesworth bought The 
Westminster of General Perronet Thompson for 
jCiooo and amalgamated the two Reviews under 
the tide of The London and Westminster Review. 
His proprietorship lasted till 1837, when it was 
transferred to John Mill, who kept it till 1840, 
when it again changed hands, and the original title 
of the first Review, The Westminster, was resumed. 



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Ill "THE LONDON REVIEW" 6$ 

There was doubdess some little anxiety in the 
minds of Lady Molesworth and Mr. WooUcombc * 
when they saw how &st thousands could disappear 
in literary undertakings. Sir William was only 
foiir- or five-and-twenty, and his former guardians 
may be excused some tittle uneasiness. He explains 
in a letter to Woollcombe that the fusion of the 
two Reviews will be "a real economy," and cut 
down expenses very considerably. In a later letter 
from John Mill to Sir William, October 1838, 
there is a passage about a sum of ^^17 which Mill 
s^d was " on every account " Molesworth' s, and he 
adds : " If you get it, let Woollcombe know that he 
may include it in the statement of your disburse- 
ments for the Review, which I am sorry to say it 
goes but a litde way to liquidate." 

The Review became an organ of very consider- 
able weight and influence, and was representative 
for many years of the best literary talent in the 
Radical party. In its pages appeared J. S. Mill's 
famous defence of Lord Durham's policy in Canada, 
which formed a turning-point not only in the 
career of Lord Durham, but in the relation of 
Great Britain with her Colonies. This subject 
will be referred to more fully in a future chapter. 
The article by John Mill on Tennyson has been 
already mentioned ; he also wrote an enthusiastic 



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66 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH ch*.-. 

appreciation of Carlylc's French Revolution; his 
father contributed two articles to the opening 
number, and continued, though in failing health, 
to give his best efforts to the Review till his death, 
in 1836. From the first he took a keen interest 
in the success of the Review and declined to accept 
any payment for his contributions. Sir William 
wrote to his mother in referen<x to the opening 
number of The London Review, April 1835 : — 

The first article by Mr. Mill is such as no one but 
he could write, and is in his very best political style. 
He has behaved most generously to us and refuses to 
take anything for his writings, thus saving us in the first 
number some sixty or seventy pounds. 

The elder Mill shared his son's high opinion of 
Molesworth's character and capacity. Professor 
Alexander Bdn, in his Life of James Mill, says 
that the elder man valued the younger both on 
account of his ability and for having the courage 
of his convictions. When James Mill died in 1836 
it was noted that of all the friends present at the 
funeral Molesworth was one of those most notably 
overcome by grief. In anticipation of James Mill's 
death, Sir William wrote to his mother ; — 

His loss will be much felt by us who look up to 
him with the greatest respect : more especially by myself, 
who invariably go to him whenever I have any political 
difficulty to solve. 



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Political SItctchct. No. ;;;, by John Doyle. Published ind M^y ig}8. 



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■II "THE LONDON REVIEW" 67 

Sir William's own articles in the early numbers 
of The London Review are chiefly on the political 
subjects by which he was for the time engrossed. 
The only exception discoverable to this rule is a 
dissertation by him on " Dreaming " in the second 
number. His interest in the colonies is manifested 
by an article on New South Wales in an early 
number. His growing determination to make a 
concentrated attack on the then prevalent system 
of transportation of convicts to Australia is de- 
monstrated in a letter to his sister Elizabeth, dated 
June 1835, in which he says, in reference to the 
second number of the Review, then about to appear : 
" John Austin has taken my subject of secondary 
punishments, which, as he will do it better than 
any man in England, I do not regret." 

In the words of Mr. Ford's unpublished memoir 
already quoted : " He made use of his articles for 
a double purpose ; they served as materials for 
speeches and as reports of their substance." The 
pages of The London and of The London and 
fVestmittster Review from 1834 to 1837 thus 
afford evidence of the direction of Sir William's 
chief political activities. 

There was a continuous and frank interchange 
of views and news, seasoned by a good sprinkling 
of "chaff," in these early years between Sir 
William and his friend Mrs. Grote. She has left 
on record that to Mr. Grote " he looked up as a 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



68 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chai-. 

disciple might to a master, whilst in myself he 
found an indulgent friend and monitress. I liked 
and esteemed his noble, frank, and chivalrous char- 
acter, and took pleasure in aiFording him the privi- 
l^e of unreserved and confidential intercourse," 
With all her Radicalism she had a great sense of 
what was fitting and comme il fault ^nd she had 
evidently reproached him for too outspoken or 
too crude an expresaon of extreme opinions. In 
writing to her about the prospectus of the new 
London Review he retaliates by promising a con- 
ditional welcome to any article she might like to 
write, " provided you are not too violent." He 
ends by begging her to entreat Grote to send an 
article he had promised on Swiss politics. 

In a letter to his mother referring to the second 
number of The Londbn Review, July 1835, Sir 
William speaks of the sensation caused by the 
publication of De Tocqueville's Democracy in 
America, and says that he has secured a promise 
from De Tocqueville to write for the Review on 
France.' 

There is an article on the Church by Mr. Mill j one 
on Bailey's book by John ; another by the same on 
Tennyson*s poetry ; one on Crabbe's poetry by Blanco 

' Thii promuc wa> fulfilled in the fallowing year. In the fint Dumber af 
the periodical, after it had uiumed the title of Tit Lmdm mi fyiamatttr 
Kevimi (April 1 1 j6}, sfqieared in »rtide by De Tocqueville ailed •■ A Vkw 
of the Polilicil Condition of Fraoce," which excited vtiy great interat in 
political and litenry circta. 



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Ill "THE LONDON REVIEW" 69 

White i on Canada by Roebuck i on Austria, a nwt 
interesting article, by a German of the name of Garnier 
... on Dreaming by myself; on Military Abuses, a 
very interesting article, it is said i on Portugal ; on Napier's 
Ionian Islands, and a Parliamentary review by John Mill. 
Bulwer promised us ; but broke his promise. 

References to political rumours follow, and he 
continues : — 

I am very busy with philosophy and reading Brougham's 
new book, which is most infernal trash. 

The Review was now well launched, and has 
kept its Sag flying, though with varying fortunes, 
ever since. 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



CHAPTER IV 



THE REFORM CLUB 



Grote's motion on the Ballot, which Sir William 
Molesworth told his sister had been put off " to 
God knows when, and he ought to be hangaJ for 
it," came on in June 1835. Molesworth seconded 
him. Charles BuUer's favourable opinion of his 
friend's speech has been already quoted.' The 
Speaker told Charles Austin that in his opinion 
Molesworth would in ten years be one of the 
first men in the country. Molesworth wrote to 
his mother that his speech had gained him the 
greatest approbation. 

Every one allows [he says] that we had infinitely 
the superiority in the debate. Charles Bullet's reply is 
acknowledged by all to have been most masterly, one 
of the best I ever heard and most enthusiastically re- 
ceived. ... It was a most gratifying debate; it was the 
Arst one in which the younger Radicals had displayed 
themselves and had obliged the leaders of the other 
parties to rise against them ; in spite of Lord John, 

1 See p. s». 



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^ 
1 



\i 



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CRAP, ir THE REFORM CLUB 71 

Stanley and Peel, one-third of the House decided with 
us : we were a majority of Lord John's former tupporten 
and many of their best friends stayed away. We have 
damaged the Whigs, and some of them had better look 
to their seats. . . . There is but one opinion with regard 
to the present administration, they are the miserablest 
brutes that God Almighty ever put guts into. Lord 
Brougham told Lord Kerry that it was the only Ministry 
in which there was not a single man of talent. 

The foregfMng passage is quoted, not because 
history has confirmed the sweeping strictures of 
the young Radical (a Ministry which Included 
Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell cannot 
be said to have been entirely bereft of men of 
talent), but to illustrate the extreme tension which 
existed in 1835 between the various sections of 
the Liberal party. Besides the Whigs and the 
Radicals, there was, then as now, the Irish party, 
and each section regarded the other two with 
vehement hostility and distrust. 

It was felt by the Radicals that their political 
group wanted cohesion and unity of aim, and 
with a view to bringing its members into closer 
personal relation with one another Sir William 
Molesworth and Mr. John Temple Leader, the 
member for Westminster, took a house jointly 
in Eaton Square, where they entertained their 
political friends and made plans for concerted 
political action. The writer of the notice of Sir 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



71 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

William in " The Maclise Portrait Gallery" (already 
quoted) does not fall to remark sarcastically on 
the flag of liberty being hoisted from a fine house 
in Eaton Square : " They are convinced that 
their party will dissolve unless rallied round one 
particular standard, and they have set up this 
liberty flag in Eaton Square. They keep a 
French cook and feed their less fortunate poHticaJ 
brethren, — a generosity noble on their part, but 
indeed necessary ; for the wholesome quality of 
the viands serves to keep these Radicals from 
starving and likevrise greatly elevates the morale 
of the men." One of Charles BuUer's jokes of 
the period was that the Reform party had been 
disintegrated and all the aggressive Radicals 
turned into Moderate Whigs by the excellence 
of the Speaker's cook. Possibly the dinners 
given by Molesworth and Leader in Eaton Square 
were an attempt to lead the flock back to the 
vigour of their former political profesMons. 

A private house, however, can never be a 
satisfactory headquarters for a political party, 
and early in 1835 Molesworth began to write in 
his private letters of the desirability of forming 
a club. In the new Parliament of 1835 the 
IJberai majority was only twenty-three, and jthis 
narrow margin gave additional strength and 
importance to the Radical 'group, who now had 
it in their power at any moment to put thdr 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



ir THE REFORM CLUB 73 

nominal leaden in a minority and consequently 
to extract concessions from them. 

The development of the scheme which was 
afterwards embodied in the founding of the 
Reform Club is best described in two letters from 
Sir William Molesworth to his mother. The first 
was written on 19th February 1835, and the 
second almost exactly a year later : — 

My dear Mother — To-day b^n the toils, contest 
and moils of the session. We hope and, I believe, will beat 
[sic'} if there be any laith in promises. Woe unto them 
that ^1 } however, it will be very dose. Our majority 
is calculated at twenty-three.* 

I was at two meetings yesterday, first at a Radical 
one. For you must know that a Radical party has been 
formed separate from the Whigs and from the Irish, to 
assist in the formation of which was one of my chief 
objects in coming to town so early. We shall ere long 
amount to between seventy and eighty. Most probably 
Grote will be the leader. We intend to have constant 
meetings in order to concert our measures and oppose 
the Tories. This is the commencement of a party 
which will one day or another bring destruction upon 
both Whigs and Tories. 

We next had a meeting with the Whigs. Lord John 
made a speech and requested us not to abuse Sutton * and 
not to cheer if we gained the victory. ... As another 

> The Torin were in office it the beginning of 1835. The Whig* cunc 
ia in ApriL The fint great fight, ben teferred to, wu for the Speikenliip. 

* TLii teCen to the gghl for the Spnkenbip. Mr. Minnen Sutton (mfta- 
mrdt Lord Cinterborj) wu " the nuu whit wc kicked out of the chair " 
(we p. 61), ind ilio the nua with the pcmiuive cook. The Right Hon. 



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7+ SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chaf. 

means of attacking the Tories a Liberal Club is to 
be formed, of which the more Liberal Whigs, Radicals, 
etc., will be members. Lords Durham, Mulgrave, etc., are 
anxious about it. It will be like the Athenxum — a good 
dining club. The great object is to get the Reformers 
of the country to join it, so that it may be a place of 
meeting for them when they come to town. It is much 
wanted. Brooks' is not Liberal enough, too expensive 
and not a dining club. 

The second letter on the formation of the 
Reform Club was written m February 1836. 

My dear MoTHan — I have not been able to 
write to you for an age. I have been so excess- 
ively occupied. I am going to second Hume's motion 
against the Orangemen on Tuesday. I shall make 
a long speech, and I think there will be a grand 
debate. I have been much occup»cd in establishing 
a political club to be called the Reform Club, the 
history of the transactions with regard to which will 

Jama Abercromlw wa* elected. Among the Pencirrow papen u a ihcet 
in Sir William'i writing— 

" Abererombie, ]i6. 
SnltoD, ]o6. 

Abererombie elected, God be pniicd." 
Onville givet a vcr^ iatemCing account of Eiiii exciting fight. There 
wai ■ great deal of betting on it j Creville won ^55, and waald hitc won 
more, but lie got frightened towardi the cloae and hedged. It illuitratei the 
manneri of the timet to find that Molaworth, writing to hi) liiter Elizabeth, 
thui deacribed the devicea of the Toriet to induce a well-known Liberal 

M.P. to itay away : " That old raacal T came to town for the Speaker- 

ibip Tote and returned to ihire to hnni the nut day. . . . 0* dil that 

the Toriet offered him if he would itay away U fins ion cinwf ir U fimi 
bdUfaaH* in the cooDty." 



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IT THE REFORM CLUB 7S 

amuse you much. Last year we attempted to do the 
same thing, but it tailed in consequence of the Whigs 
being opposed to it secretly, and it would have biled 
again this year if they had taken the lead or if we had 
allowed ourselves to be humbug'd by them. You know 
soon after I came to town I saw Hume. I pressed him 
to exert himself to form a club independently of the 
Whigs and to leave them to join us if they thought 
proper. He was witling. He and I had several meetings 
with Joe Parkes and Ewart, and we looked out for houses, 
and communications were made to Ellice and one or two 
of the most Liberal Whigs who evidently wished to throw 
us over again and to procrastinate. This I had expected. 
Nothing was done previous to my going to Birmingham. 
Parkes and myself came to the determination that a blow 
must be struck and that we must make Joe [Hume] do 
it. I sat next to Hume and stirred him up as much as I 
could. Still nothing was done till the Tuesday, Ellice 
was to return from Paris on the Wednesday, and I knew 
if he were admitted to the preliminary consultations all 
was up for the present. Parkes sent for me, and I went 
to Hume and told him now was the time or never. He 
agreed to a meeting the next day, and we sent word to a 
very few persons ; seven persons only came, five of them 
only M.P.'s. Wt determined first That there thould be a 
Rtform C3ub. We then put fifty names down, almost all 
of them M.P.'s whom we knew were fovourable to such 
a scheme. We appointed them the provisional com- 
mittee. . . . We dated our meeting London and left 
them to find out who had been present. This was a 
most bold and impudent blow. And I don't believe, 
except the five who were present, any other persons of our 
party would have assented to such a proceeding. . . . We 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



76 SIR WILUAM MOLESWORTH chaf. 

took the best of the Radicals and no Whigs. On the 
Thursday the House met. Many of the circulars had 
been presented j the Whigs consequently saw them uid 
were thunderstruck — if they did not join they thought vtc 
should make a club alone and become their masters. If they 
succeeded in preventing a club, they thought they would 
olicnd the fifty mortally, and the party and their power 
would be destroyed ; they were at the same time 
excessively frightened by the proposal to leave them in 
the lurch. A shell had been thrown into the midst of 
them and had exploded ; who threw it they could not 
make out. They went about endeavouring to trace who 
had been present at the meeting which issued this circular. 
They could only trace three persons, Parkcs, Hume, and 
myself. We had shown fiity good Radicals, who, though 
none of them individually would probably have assented to 
such a proceeding, would not flinch or complain of being 
put on the committee ; indeed every one of them had 
either this year or last expressed his opinion in favour of 
the club to some one of us. On the Thursday I met 
Ellice and asked him sneeringly if he had come from 
Paris to assist us in making a club. On the Friday he 
came to me as I was going out of the House and re- 
quested me to tell him what we were about. I informed 
him we were forming a club j he asked me why we had 
not consulted him and the more Liberal Whigs. Because, 
I replied, you twice frustrated our attempts last year ; now 
we were determined to have a club, and they might join 
us and we should be delighted at their so doing. He 
then asked if the Radicals intended to lead the Whigs, 
and said if we acted in this manner we should break up 
the party. I replied we had no such intention and wished 
them to join us, and we intended to write them so to do ; 



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n- THE REFORM CLUB 77 

if he thought that the Whigs were to lead us as they 
thought proper, he was quite mistalcen ; we would have 
a club. You may easily suppose that this conversation 
was not one of the most courteous description. I suppose 
you know who EUice is. He was Secretary at War, 
brother-in-iaw of Lord Grey. We agreed at Ust to go 
to Parkcs in Great George Street — we were joined by 
Stanley, Secretary of the Treasury ; • between the four 
a discussion — an angry one — took place. At last EUice 
offered to assist in the formation of a club and oblige the 
Whigs to join us, if we would consent to a committee 
containing a fair proportion of Whigs. To this Parkes 
and I assented. EUice then wrote down the names of 
thirty-five persons, to whom we assented. Twenty of 
them were Radicals and fifteen Whigs i several of them 
were junior members of the administration, whose consent 
EUice and Stanley pledged themselves to obtain, and we 
promised to get the list assented to at the meeting of the 
next day. We then parted. As you may imagine, Parkes 
and myself were delighted. I doubt whether we could 
form a club without the assistance of the Whigs. We 
had them now ; they had come to us ; they had assented 
to a list written out by themselves ; it was impossible for 
them to retract. Our next object was to get the Radical 
meeting to consent to this list — a delicate task, as many 
who were solicited to form the first committee might 
be offended at their names not being put upon this one. 
At the same time it was of the utmost importance that 
not the slightest alteration should be made, lest a pretext 
might be given to the Whigs, who we suspected would 
repent of what they had been about (such we found to 
be the case afterwards, and I hear they complain that we 
> Aftcrwrardi LonI Stuvk; of Alderk]'. 



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78 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH ch»f. 

took them by surprise and had got them to assent to a 
list without calculating the number of Radicals upon it. 
Moreover, O'Connell was a bitter pill to many of them. 
Ellice himself, however, had proposed him and written him 
down). The next morning Partes and myself started off 
to Hume, and he approved of all we had done, and said 
he would get the consent of the meeting. He took the 
chair. Everything went off most harmoniously and all 
appeared delighted. Afterwards, as we had suspected, 
there was a slight attempt to shuffle. Stanley told 
Parkes and myself that he must first obtain the consent 
of Lord John, and complained of our having divulged the 
meeting between us. To this we replied that we felt 
ourselves in no way bound to secrecy ; they had come 
to us, and they knew what they were about and ought to 
have obtained Lord John's consent before they proposed 
a list to us. We had pledged oureelvcs for our friends ; 
wc had performed our promise, and they must perform 
theirs or take the consequences of an exposure which 

would now in^ibly break up the party. They d d 

Parkes and cursed me in their hearts. But as there was 
no help for it, they have very wisely determined to get 
all their friends to join the club. Most of the Cabinet 
are now original members : the Dukes of Sussex and of 
Norfolk, etc We have admitted already above six hun- 
dred persons. Our success is certain. It will be the 
best club in town, and the effect will be to break up 
the Whig party by joining the best of them to the 
Radicab, and the club will be the political centre of the 
Empire, and augment our power immensely. All we 
want is organisation. This we shall now obtain. We 
had no place of meeting. Ten Radical M.P.'s were 
never to be found together except in the House, conse- 



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IV THE REFORM CLUB 79 

quently no one knew what his neighbour was about. 
This disorganisation the Whigs desired, and on thii 
account the^ have always in secret been of^xned to a 
cluh. Now their only remaining hope is to join us in 
such numbers as to have the predominance j they wilt 
lail in this respect. They have never been in social con- 
tact with us yet ; I don't fear their influence ; some few 
they may seduce, but very few, whibt we shall gain 
many of them, for in all arguments we are their superiors. 
The most intelligent of them are aware of all this and 
have made up their minds to it. Indeed, strange is the 
progress of poUtical events, and we must allow that 
Ministers have been acting vtry well of late. We are 
amazingly cordial now. Ketp this letter and don't read 
it to all the world. 

The Happy Family so vividly described in the 
foregoing letter managed to subsist side by side 
in the same club. But Sir William's confident 
prediction that the Radicals would absorb the 
Whigs was doomed to disappointment. The pro- 
cess of absorption was in the other direction. 
The Radical party began to melt away, and 
the philosophical Radicals espedally quickly 
approached a vanishing point. It was in the 
autumn of this year, 1 836, in which the " bold and 
impudent blow " had been struck and the club so 
triumphantly founded, that Charles Buller uttered 
his well-known witticism, which is bound to be 
quoted whenever philosophical Radicalism is men- 
tioned. Staying late after a party at the Grotes' 



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8o SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

house at Dulmch in the late autumn of 1836, Sir 
William Moiesworth, Charles Buller, and their host 
and hostess sat discussing the Parliamentary out- 
look, when Buller summed up the situation by ex- 
claiming : "I see what we are coming to, Grote ; 
in no very long time from this, only you and 
I will be left to 'tcU' Molesworth." More 
seriously Mrs. Grote had entered in her diary 
about the same time: " Mr. Grote and about five 
others find themselves left to sustain the Radical 
opinions of the House of G)mmons." The next 
session Radical prospects were still waning, and 
Mrs. Grote wrote to Sir Wilham after the General 
Election of 1837 : — 

I don't see how we Radicals are to make head this 
coming Parliament at all. . . . The brunt of the 
battle will have to be sustained by Grote and you, aided 
by Buller, Leader, Charles Villiers and a few more. 
. . . Take care of your health, and don't sit smttrring 
indoors, but take air and exercise, I entreat you. 
George sends love ; he has no heart in the coming 
session and deplores the loss of old William IV. daily. 
How amusing ! He is above all anxious for Hume to 
get seated somehow. 

One cause of the downfall of Radical hopes was 
to be found in the fiood of loyalty that greeted 
the accesMon of the young Queen. This was why 
Grote uttered daily lamentations for the death of 
King William. But there were other causes at 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



IT THE REFORM CLUB 8i 

work consuming the energy and weakening the 
Mth. of the Radicals. The fault was in themselves, 
not in their stars and not in the causes for which 
they worked, nearly all of which were in time 
successfiilly prosecuted, and have received and 
merit universal commendation. 

The failure of the Radicals of the second quarter 
of the nineteenth century was a f^ure which may 
be considered equivalent to success. The causes 
they espoused triumphed so completely that the 
Tories of this generation are more Liberal than the 
Liberals of 1832. 



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CHAPTER V 



THE ORANGE LODGES 



In the letter from Sir William Molesworth to 
his mother, quoted at length in the last chapter, 
he refers to a recent visit to Birnungham, and 
also states that he is " going to second Hume's 
motion against the Orangemen on Tuesday." 
The visit to Birmingham had been for the purpose 
of attending a public dinner and a meeting of the 
National Political Union, the famous association 
which had had so considerable a share in achieving 
the final victory in the battle for Reform. Sir 
WiUiam travelled to Birmingham with Joe Parkes, 
leaving London in a chariot at eight o'clock on 
Wednesday evening and reaching Birmingham at 
twelve noon the next day. He attended the 
public dinner, at which looo people sat down in 
the finest room he had ever seen ; he made a 
speech ; then went to the meeting, at which he 
spoke again ; left Birmingham at one o'clock on 



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cHAP.v THE ORANGE LODGES Sj 

the Friday morning and reached London again 
at five the same evening. People talk of the 
nervous exhaustion caused by the rush and pace 
of modern life ; but travelling by coach for thirty- 
two hours between Wednesday at 8 p.m. and 
Friday at 5 p.m. and filling the rest of the 
forty-five hours by dining in public, attending 
meetings and making speeches, would be con- 
sidered a rather exhausting performance even at 
the present time. This hurried journey was in 
January 1836. No doubt Sir William wanted 
to get into touch with the Birmingham Radicals, 
but he does not appear to have been very favour- 
ably impressed by them. " Shrewd but uneducated 
men," he describes them in a home letter ; " the 
young men, however, are a much better set." 
He was surprised at the mildness of their speeches, 
and says he was the only one who " spoke out." 

On his return his time was divided between the 
establishment of the Reform Club and preparation 
for his sprach on the Orange Lodges. His 
speeches were always most carefully prepared ; 
he worked at the facts on which he raised his 
structure of argument as carefully as a barrister 
gets up his brief All contemporary accounts of 
his speeches agree that they were elaborate treatises, 
the result of hard study and industrious research. 
He thought no trouble too great to enable him 
to get a complete grasp of all the facts bearing on 



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84 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH cur. 

the subject on which he spoke. He was no 
facile orator, and he was better in set speeches 
than in the cut-and-thrust of debate. But the 
labour he bestowed upon the matciial of his 
speeches is the main reason of their enduring 
influence. He looked not so much to the victory 
of the moment as to the establishment of principles 
on which he believed the prt^ress of the future 
depended. It was said of him at the time of his 
death:— 

The elaborate care with which he was known Co pre- 
pare his speeches, and certain natural defects of manner 
and elocution, prevented his becoming a popular orator 
in the House of Commons ; but the weapons which he 
wielded were weighty, and probably no one ever produced 
so much el^t in so few speeches. The moral nature of 
the man was a fitting counterpart to the intellectual. 
Simple, sincere, and straightforward, without fear and 
without compromise^ no man's assertions carried more 
weight, no man received or deserved more entire credit 
for consistency of principle and singleness of purpose. — 
Ttnus, 23rd October 1855. 

These characteristics were very prominent in 
his speech on the Orange Lodges on 23rd February 
1836. His readiness to prove an assertion which 
was believed at the moment to be a mere oratorical 
flourish was one of the most marked triumphs of 
the speech, which seems to have won him great 
applaitse in all respects. 



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V THE ORANGE LODGES 8; 

Mrs. Grote, in her description of Sir VTiUiam 
Molcsworth, dwells on his sense of the injustice 
and wrongs under which the bulk of the English 
people suffered and the intensity of his dcMre to 
bring about a healthier and juster administration 
of the laws. In 1834 an event had happened 
close to his native county which had aroused these 
sentiments in the highest degree. In the early 
years of the rise of Trades* Unionism an attempt 
was made by working-class leaders to form what 
was called a Grand National Trades' Union — that 
is, not merely a union within one particular trade, 
but a combination among the labouring classes 
generally, with the object of improving their 
condition. On 17th March 1834, six Dorsetshire 
labourers were sentenced to seven years' transm 
tion for administering illegal oaths in connj 
with their efforts to induce their fellow-labol 
to join this National Trades' Union. This ini- 
quitous sentence aroused among the whole body 
of real reformers the most lively indignation. 
These poor and ignorant men were sentenced 
under an obsolete statute which had been passed 
in order to meet the case of mutiny in the Navy. 
For indulging in the foolery of a drawn sword 
and bandaged eyes and other paraphernalia of 
oath-taking, doubtless borrowed from the recol- 
lection of masonic ceremonies, mx men were 
consigned to a pimistunent almost worse than 



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insD^ta- 
'nn^^ft^ 
labo^^ 



86 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

death.' In superficial natures the rage awakened 
by such judicial atrocities produces but a super- 
ficial effect. But with those who possess tenacity 
of purpose and strength of will the keen emotion 
of the moment hardens into stern resolve to 
devote throughout life all the best powers they 
possess to make such injustice impossible in the 
future. The history of social and l^al reform 
in England is starred with the names of many 
such men and women, and among them that of 
William Molesworth deserves to be remembered 
and honoured. The first result of his indignation 
is to be found in his speech on the Orange Lodges 
— what was sauce for the Dorsetshire labourer 
should be sauce for a Royal Duke. The second 
result was a close examination into the character 
of the punishment of transportation, which resulted 
in his determination to prove to the whole country 
that it possessed every evil and disadvantage which 
could accrue to any penal sptem, and that it was 
necessarily attended by moral evils of the most 
appalling character. The Parliamentary inquiry 

' "Afnc pardon wat tent oat to the«e men in iSj7 ; but not wilhont in 
citraordinu; diipUy of pbyaiol force on che part of the Tndet' Unionian. 
On lilt April it37, 30,000 working men diaplayed thenuelvei in London, 
each armed with the taoli of hit trade, preference being given to auch ■■ 
could be uieii u weaponi. It wai propoaed to meet violence by violence i 
twenty-nine ^ei of artillery were brought up from Woolwich to Whitehall, 
lad iinall ainnon were monated on the rooft of the Government officca ; 
but the danger of conflict waa averted by the Miniatry giving way, and the 
Doraetahire laboureri were recalled from Van Diemen't Land." — Miaa 
Mattioean, Tkry Tiwi Piaa, voL ii, pp. I$5-I5(. 



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V THE ORANGE LODGES 87 

into the effects of transportation for which Moles- 
worth moved for a Select Committee in 1837 was 
the first public outcome of two years' previous 
study given to the subject. This is proved by 
his correspondence. Indirectly resulting from his 
study of the subject of transportation and its 
effects grew his more general interest in Colonial 
government and his conviction that the only 
reasonable system was to allow the Colonies self- 
government on democratic lines. Like Saul, who 
started to find his father's asses and found a 
kingdom, Molesworth set out to protest against 
the iniquity of the sentence passed on the Dorset- 
shire labourers and found his life's work. First, 
the destruction of transportation as a secondary 
' punishment, and secondly, the establishment of the 
principle of Colonial self-government. 

As the first step on this path, the attack on the 
Orange Lodges and on the Duke of Cumberland 
as their Grand Master receives whatever interest 
may accrue to it at this time. The present genera- 
tion quite correctly associates Orangeism with the 
North of Ireland, especially with Belfast, where 
the Orange Lodges are known to be intensely 
loyal and intensely Protestant, with a loyalty and 
a Protestantism which cannot be produced save by 
the exciting proximity of disloyalty and Roman 
Catholicism. This also was in the main the history 
of Orangeism from its foundation till about 1828. 



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88 SIR WILUAM jrfOLESWORTH chap. 

There were two or three isolated Orange Lodges in 
Engknd and Scotland early in the nineteenth 
century, but only in places where the Northern 
Irish had migrated in considerable . numbers. 
About 1828, however, Orangeism b^an to spread 
rapidly in England and Wales. The Duke of 
Cumberland became the Grand Master, and Lord 
Kenyon the Deputy Grand Master. The Bishop 
of Salisbury was the Grand Qiapldn : no salary 
was attached to chaplaincies of the lodges, but it 
was naively stated that the position was one which 
" might lead to promotion," The Duke, with a 
mockery of the formalities of a Royal Commis^on, 
appointed his " trusty and well-beloved " Colonel 
Fairman to go about the country and establish 
Orange Lodges wherever he could, even in the 
Army. This the Duke afterwards denied, but 
the House of Commons Committee which took 
evidence on the whole subject in 1835 gr*^y 
reported that they found it most difficult to re- 
concile statements in evidence before them with 
ignorance of those proceedings on the part of 
H.R.H. the Duke of Cumberland. This may be 
taken as the nearest approach to giving H.R.H. 
the lie direct which the cowenances of a Select 
Committee admitted of. The exciting cause of 
this outburst of Protestantism in such a predous 
upholder of religion in any form as the Duke of 
Cumberland, was the passing of the C-athoUc 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



V THE ORANGE LODGES 89 

Emancipation Act by the Duke of Wellington's 
GoTCTnment in 1829, and the political agitation 
leading up to it. The commission of Colonel 
Fairman on behalf of his Royal Master was to 
represent to groups of people, whom he was to 
induce to form Orange Lodges, that on the 
presently expected demise of the Crown (George 
IV. died in the following jrear) the next heir, the 
Duke of Clarence, was insane and the second heir 
presumptive " was not alone a female but a minor." 
Under these circumstances, so Colonel Fairman 
was to lead his dupes to believe, the Duke of 
Wellington would probably seize the Crown unless 
his machinations were frustrated by the loyal 
Orange Lodges insisting that the Duke of Cum- 
berland should be King. To us all this seems 
like the idle dream of a crack-brained fanatic; 
but at the time it did not seem so prepos- 
terous as it seems to us. In this as in so many 
other things, people then looked at events by the 
light of the French Revolution. Napoleon Bona- 
parte, from being the servant of France had made 
himself her master, and had reigned as her 
Emperor. Was there therefore anything intrin- 
sically absurd in Wellington, the conqueror of 
Napoleon, asfiring to place a crown upon his 
brow? Fairman's campdgn in the country met 
with no little success. He boasted that the Orange 
army consisted of 140,000 men. He started a 



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A 



9© SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

camp^gn among Lord Londonderry's pitmen, but 
did not find them very amenable to his seductions. 
From time to time he returned to headquarters 
and was closeted for hours together with the Duke 
of Cumberland at Kew. Lord Kenyon wrote that 
in the last two and a half years he bad spent 
nearer j^20,ooo than^io,ocx) "in the good cause." 
Thirty lodges were formed in the Army and Navy. 
Soldiers and sulors were attracted to the organisa- 
tion by a remission of the fees. As in the case of 
the Dorsetshire labourers, all the solemn mummery 
of the administration of oaths was gone through, 
and signs and passwords were adopted. In the 
session of 1835, Joseph Hume moved for a Parlia- 
mentary Committee of Inquiry on the subject. 
Most of the evidence was obtained by means of a 
man named Haywood, who had once belonged to 
the Orange organisation but had turned against it. 
On 4th August 1835, Hume moved a series of 
resolutions, ending with an address to the Crown 
asking for the condemnation of the proceedings of 
the Orangemen in the formation of lodges in the 
Army. On the motion of Lord John Russell, the 
debate was adjourned for a week, to give the Duke 
of Cumberland time to withdraw or explain ; but 
he did neither. On i tth August, Lord John said 
that the Duke had not done what the House had 
the right to expect of him ; and Mr. Hume's 
resolutions were, with some modifications, agreed 



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r THE ORANGE LODGES 91 

to. On 19th August, the House was informed 
that the "trusty and well - beloved " Colonel 
Fainnan had refused to produce a letter -book 
required by the Gimmittee. Fairman was com- 
mitted to Newgate for breach of privilege, but 
sought safety in flight. Haywood was prosecuted 
for libel. Molesworth was one of a small group 
who made themselves responsible for his defence, 
and retained Buller and Austin as his counsel. 
The trial, however, never came on ; for Haywood 
broke a blood-vessel, and died before the proceed- 
ings b^n. Molesworth wrote an article on the 
Orange Lodges, based on the evidence given before 
the House of Commons Committee ; this appeared 
in the January number, 1836, of The London 
Review. It was resolved to prosecute, under the 
same law by means of which the Dorsetshire 
labourers had been condemned, the Duke of 
Cumberland, Lord Kenyon, and the Bishop of 
Salisbury. In all of this we trace the hand of 
Molesworth. It is the same spirit which dictated 
the letter to his sister quoted on p, 60 ': " Alderman 
Wood has brought in a Bill against omnibuses, and 
I intend to bring in a Bill against gentlemen's 
carriages." He was determined to make the 
governing classes smart under the very same lash 
which they had complacently prepared for the 
groundlings. The rest of the story can now best 
be told by the Pencarrow letters. 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



91 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH cbai-. 

Sir William Molesworth to his Mother 

Janiiarj 1S36. 
I returned to town rather tired [this was after the 
Birmingham excursion], and was much vexed at Ending 
Haywood, whose defence we had undertaken, and whose 
trial would have come on to-day, was dead by the bursting 
of a blood-vessel. For various political reasons, the in- 
dictments [against the Duke of Cumberland, etc] wiU 
not be presented now till March. This delay annoys me ; 
it cannot, however, be avoided without endangering our 
ultimate success, and I still hope we may bpng the 
culprits to trial and convict them. 

Mr, Hume wanted all proceedings stayed till 
after the House of Commons debate, because, by 
the well-known rule, it would have been impossible 
to have a debate on a subject that was at the same 
moment being tried in the Law Courts. Hume 
stuck staunchly to his guns, and Sir William wrote 
again to his mother in the month of January 
1836:— 

I saw Hume on Friday. He is an admirable person, 
and I will never laugh at his blunders again. He is 
worth 100 of your do-nothing gents. 

The debate took place on 23rd February 1836, 
and Sir William seconded Mr. Hume's '* tremen- 
dous resolution " propositi an address to the King 
prayit^ him to discharge all Orangemen and 
members of other secret political associations from 
all offices, civil and military. Sir William's speech 



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V THE ORANGE LODGES 93 

was an unqualified success. Here is his own 
description of it, followed by extracts from letters 
from his brother Arscott and his friend Mr. 
Duppa, who were present on the occawon :— 

Fti. 14, 1836. 
Mr DKAK Mother — We have destroyed the Orange- 
men. Last night I seconded Hume with a success which 
exceeded my most sanguine anticipations. The House 
was full, 400 at least present. Hume made a long and 
confused speech. He contrived woefully to tangle 
and to confuse the clearest subject. The House was 
weary when I rose. I contrived quickly to excite 
their attention and to stimulate their feelings. I could 
hardly finish a sentence, so loud and enthusiastic 
were the cheers ; never even amongst my most ardent 
followers was I so much applauded. In the midst 
of my speech a most fortunate event happened. I 
cited some expressions made use of by one of the Orange 
members in a document ; he rose furiously and asked 
me what I meant. I told him, and referred to the 
document, which at the moment I could not find. The 
Opposition thought they would put me down, and called 
upon me to read it. I turned to my friends and desired 
them to look for it, then coolly proceeded with my 
speech. I had hardly said three sentences when it was put 
into my hands. I read it, put my glass into my eye, and 
looked at him, and thanked God that the expression used 
by the member in that document was an incorrect one.^ 

1 The memha wu Mr. Ruidal Plunlutt, M.P. fi>r Droghedi i the eipret- 
non he had n*ed wja ■ rcferoiu to tbe Duke of Cuinbcrluid ai the iadi* 
Tidq^ "oeareM to the threnc " in the United Kbigdom, with ■ cnrioM atdiiioD 
flf tbe eii^encc of PrinccM Victoria u heire*>-prc*Dinptivc. 



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9+ 



SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH 



Thus I crushed him, and proved to the satis&ction of 
friend and foe that I was not to be put down easily. 
When I finished I was congratukted hy every one. It 
would be too egotistical to repeat all that was said to me 
in praise by the leading men. . . . The Tories said it was 
2 most infemous speech, and cursed me most cordially for 
it. Duppa and Arscott were in the House, so was my 
friend C. Austin, who said I spoke with an audacity 
worthy of the French Convention — the boldest speech he 
ever heard. Thus we have slain the Orangemen. — Your 
affectionate Son, 

Wm. Molbswokth. 

Arscott Molesworth also wrote on the same day 
to his mother : — 

41 Cakey Stkebt, 
Fei. 14, 1836. 

My dear Mother — I went to hear William on the 
Orange Lodges, and splendidly he spoke, with a great 
deal of animation and without that false voice which 
whenever I have heard him before he used to have. 
Joe Hume was, and is, I believe, always a sad hand. 
You saw Randal Plunkctt's interruption. William set 
him down admirably. Could anything be worse than 
what Peel said i His observation as regards William was 
absurd, as it would prevent any M.P. from calling His 
Majesty's Ministers to account for not prosecuting a 
criminal for fear of sending him to be tried with the 
stigma of a vote of the House of Commons attached to 
him. Glorious immunity for His Majesty's Attorney- 
General ! I have never been so much delighted, and I 
fear have written nonsense in consequence. But Austin 
and everybody who was near me agreed that it was one 



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V THE ORANGE LODGES 95 

of the best, tho' the most audacious speech ever delivered. 
The Tories say it was the most rascally. It quite 
slagged them, to use a skng expression. Austin said to 
a iriend of his while Wm. was spealcing on the law 

ptnnti^ " He is a d d clear-headed fellow this," This 

I overheard. — With love to you all. Believe me, your 
dutiful Son, 

A. O. MoiSSWORTH. 

Mr. Duppa's letter, written on 26th February 
1836, completes the narrative : — 

86 NsuMAN Striit, Friday. 

Did you ever, my dear Lady Molesworth, pass thro' 
a farmyard and see a hen with one duclc ? If you have 
you may easily iigure to younelf the situation in which I 
was placed on Tuesday night when your dearest first-born 
got up to make his speech in the House of Commons 
against the Orange Lodges. I was the Hen, he the 
Duck. The Duck was about to swim, and the Hen 
was naturally in a fright. However, the Hen was glad 
when she perceived the Duck land safely on the other 
side of the pond — so was I when William finished his 
oration. 

I believe there is nothing so gratifying to a mother's 
feelings as reading the praises of her son. I mean to 
gratify your vanity by praising William. 

You have, I doubt not, read over William's speech 
mart than enei, and are in consequence acquainted with 
the matter, though not perhaps with the manner of his 
delivery. 

He rose, not with the diffidence which generally 
characterises and so well becomes one of his age, but 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



96 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chaf. 

with a degree of self-confidence worthy the Great Dan 
himself, and spolce with wonderful energy — feiled neither 
in quotation nor reference until interrupted by Mr. 
Randal Plunkett. He begged some explanation, which 
you will find in the report. Well, explanation given, 
Wm. stuck his glass firmly in his eye, transfixed the 
hon. member with his look, and said, with a sang-frnd of 
which the most experienced debater might well have 
been proud : *' I hope the hon. member's memory is 
refreshed." You who know him so well will be able to 
appreciate this sketch, and will be able to add the 
colouring necessary to complete the picture. He then 
expounded the laws relative to Orange and other societies 
using secret signs and oaths, told them those who 
frequented such societies subjected thcntselves to trans- 
portation — that the Duke of Cumberland and his clique 
ought not to be spared because they were rich and well 
educated, whilst the poor ignorant Dorchester laboureis 
were suffering for the infringement of those laws which 
they were unable to understand. 

William gave out the names of the titled criminals, as 
he termed them, with exquisite bitterness, and cienclted 
his red pocket-handkerchief in his fist towards the con- 
clusion of his address as though he were tearing up 
Orange societies by the root. Tremendous cheering 
followed his speech. In hxx, he diitinguished himstlfy and 
I have little hesitation in saying that if he goes oa as 
he has begun he will one day make about the best, though 
not perhaps the most prudent, ^>eaker in the House. 
Arscott and myself were in the House from 4 o'clock in 
the afternoon until 2 in the morning. Arscott turned 
very pale when his brother rose. . . . After thi speech, 
for it was assuredly tht speech of the night, William, 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



r THE ORANGE LODGES 97 

Arscott, and ^our humble servant adjourned to Bellamy's 
Kitchen, where we demolished sundry mutton chops, 
Welsh rabbits, bottles of porter and sheny — no bad linale 
to the night's fatigue, for, by Jove, it is a monstrous bore 
to sit in the same place for ten consecutive hours. Thank 
God, I am not a M.P." 

The great sensation of the speech had been the 
reference to the Duke of Cumberland by name. 

The speech called upon ^the taw officers of the 
Crown to present to the Grand Jury of Middlesex lulls 
of indictment against the Imperial Grand Master, the 
Duke of Cumberland, against the Grand Master of 
England, Lord Kenyon, against the Grand Secretary, 
Lord Chandos ; and to these worthies let them not 
forget to add the Right Reverend Father in God, 
Thomas, Lord Bishop of Salisbury. Thus these statutes, 
which were the creation of the sworn enemies of the 
people, may now, as it were by a retribution of Divine 
Providence, become the means of crushing this institution 
— of destroying this tmperium in imperio, and of laying 
prostrate its chief. At his fate none of his followers will 
mourn. A few years' residence on the shores of the 
Southern Ocean would teach him and other titled 
criminals that the laws of their country are not to be 
violated with impunity, and that equal justice is now to 
be administered to the high and to the low." 

In a long letter to Woollcombe, Molesworth 
described the forther development of the debate. 
Lord John Russell met the situation with courage 
and resolution. He moved an address to the 
King, praying His Majesty to take such measures 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



98 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

as might be necessary for the suppression of the 
societies. The Orangemen in the House ofiered 
no opposition, and Lord John's motion was agreed 
to unanimously. Two days later the King's reply 
was received : it was completely in harmony with 
the spirit of the address. The Home Secretary 
sent a copy to the Duke of Cumberland ; the 
Duke accepted the situation, and promised that he 
would immediately proceed to dissolve the societies 
complained of Sir William Molesworth writes to 
WooUcombe : — 

We have put the Orangemen down. They were 
abandoned by all parties, and their leaders consented to 
die. Thus ends our question with the Hoary Duke. 
Our indictments were ready, and we should have brought 
him to trial. This would now be most inexpedient, and 
would only open in a court of justice a question now 
satisfactorily settled. 

The abandonment of the prosecution of H.R.H. 
and the other " titled criminals " was a considerable 
relief to Woollcombe in his character of careiul 
steward of the Molesworth estates. He writes to 
Lady Molesworth to express his very great satis- 
faction that the debate had ended as it had. 
" The indictment," he says, " was after all a fearful 
sort of business, and, to say the least of it, would 
have involved a tremendous expense." Lady 
Molesworth appeared to fear that the tables would 
be turned, and that her son would be prosecuted 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



V THE ORANGE LODGES 99 

for libel by H.R.H., but nothing of the sort was 
attempted. The only interesting social result of Sir 
William's speech was that he received an invitation 
Irom the Duchess of Kent to a party at Ken^ngton 
Palace ; " I suppose," writes Sir William, " in con- 
sequence of my proposing to transport her brother- 
in-law." In a letter to his sister Elizabeth (the 
last in the Pencarrow collection) before her death, 
he describes the party ; — 

On Saturciay I went to the Dutchess of Kent's, where 
I met my friend the Duke of C[umberland], to whom I 
think I wa3 pointed out, as he looked like the devil it me, 
and I laughed. O'Connell says that a friend present told 
him there was no danger to the Princess Victoria from 
His Royal Highness, for there was I with my glass in my 
eye standing before him and Hume behind him, so ^1 
was safe I I went with Grote, and there was a strange 
mixture of Rads^ Whigs, and Tories. Grote, Fattison, 
Crawford, Bannerman, and myself placed ourselves for 
some time near the entrance to see the people coming in 
and going out, and it waa excessively funny to sec the 
stares of astonishment of the Tories in finding us there in 
force. We were presented to the Dutchess of Kent, 
Princess Victoria, and Prince Ferdinand, but the crowd 
was so great we could hardly get a glimpse — the latter 
seems quite a boy. 

Thus ended the great House of Commons 
fight on the question of the Orange Lodges, in a 
characteristically English fashion, by the chief anta- 
gonists meeting as fellow-^ests at an evening party. 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



loo SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap.v 

Sir William Molesworth's only other important 
speech in the House in the session of 1836 was 
one on nth March on Army Reform, in which 
he attacked the exclusive privileges enjoyed by the 
Guards. As is usual in similar circumstances, he 
received numerous private letters fixim officers in 
the army, to say he was perfectly right : but little 
or no public support. In the course of the debate 
he was attacked by an honourable member. Sir H. 
Hardinge, for having borrowed lus arguments from 
the pages of The London Review. His rejoinder 
was complete ; no one in the House had a better 
right to quote the article, for he himself had 
written it, and the Review in which it appeared 
was his property. The House laughed most 
heartily at this reply, especially whep Molesworth 
requested Hardinge to buy the Review. Sir 
William was not half a Scotchman for nothing, 
and he hoped the incident would serve to increase 
the circulation of The London Review. 

Sir William Napier wrote to Roebuck in March 
1836, bestowing high praise on Molesworth's speech 
about the Guards : *' The declaration that there is 
no jealousy of them entertained by the line is 
absolutely laughable. ILet them put it to a vote 
by ballot, and I will venture to say there will not be 
one white bean in a hundred for retaining them on 
thor present footing." 



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CHAPTER VI 

FAMILY AFFAIRS 1 836 

The affectionate intimacy between Sir William 
Molesworth and the members of his immediate 
family has been sufficiently indicated by the letters 
already quoted. Seldom has a young man enter- 
ing upon social and political activity written vnth 
more entire unreserve to his home circle. They 
shared, and he wished them to share, in everything 
that he was doing and thinking. As a son, his 
letters to Lady Molesworth speak for themselves ; 
as a brother, he was not only full of affection and 
a thoroughly charming companion and friend, he 
was also very alive to his responsibilities as the 
head of the family, and was keenly desirous to do 
whatever was just and generous for its younger 
members, both educationally and financially. He 
was as much father as brother in his relations 
with the youngest member of the family, Francis 
Molesworth. He writes constantly and anxiously 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



loi SIR WILLIAM MOLBSWORTH crap. 

to his mother, and also to Mrs. Austin and Mrs. 
Grote, about Francis's education, which was carried 
out mainly in Germany. For a time he thought 
that Francis would take to politics, and that he 
(Sir William) would retire in his favour. In 1836 
he planned and carried out a German tour with 
Francis, and he writes to Mrs. Grote a warm 
appreciation of the lad, then about eighteen years 
old:— 

My youngest brother, whom you saw at Offentach, is 
with me. He is an excessively fine boy, and speaks 
German like a German. He will fill my shoes well, Ibr 
I feel that my career will be a short one. ... I like the 
system I have pm^ued in educating Francis abroad ; it 
gives him an independent feeling and self-reliance which 
is most valuable. 

A little earlier he had written, also to Mrs. 
Grote, about his projected tour with Frands : — 

My brother and I are going to read Greek together 
on the outside of the carriage, and we have got a brace 
of Thucydides in order to study history. 

The allusion to the possibility of Francis talcing 
his elder brother's place in politics was evtdentiy 
more than the expression of a passing impulse ; 
for one of the members of the Parliamentary 
group to which Grote and Molesworth belonged, 
Mr. Henry Warburton, M.P., wrote a serious 
remonstrance to Mrs. Grote about it : — 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



Ti FAMILY AFFAIRS 103 

There is an absurd morbid feeling about him as being 
for this world for but a short period, and speaking of his 
brother as a "promising successor." What is this lan- 
guage in the mouth of a young fellow in the flower of 
youth i He must have been courting and disappointed 
in love, or he would never talk after this £ishion. 

Mr. Warburton was not very far wrong ; but 
1836 was a year which brought heavy sorrow to 
Sir William over and above what he may have 
suffered from the rejection of his suit by the family 
of the lady he loved. On4thMay 1836, his dearly 
loved sister Elizabeth died at Pencarrow. Her 
name is still spoken of there as "my beautiful 
^ster Elizabeth." She and her brother had been 
all in all to each other since they were both 
babies. She shared in most of his studies, and 
took the keenest interest in his political work. 
There arc frequent references in his letters of 

1835 and the first four months of 1836 to her 
illness. This may possibly have originated with 

influenza, of which there was a severe outbreak in 

1834-35. S*'" William writes to his mother in 

1834:— 

The influenza has attacked every one. Hume and 
Althorpc were very ill ; O'Connell, Trclawney, and the 
majority of the Committee upon which they were, took 
to their beds. . . . Every family I know has been ill, 
servants and all. At the opera last Saturday, Taglioni, 
the two Esters, and four or live of the male dancers were 



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I04 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

not able to perform. Never was any pestilence so uni- 
versal. I am glad to find that Elizabeth is able to go 
out on the ponjr. Harris writes me a very bvourable 
account of her, and that she is an out-and-out politician. 

In January 1836 he writes that he is glad to 
hear that Elizabeth is better ; but in April his 
letters manifest poignant anxiety ; she is worse, 
and the prospect of recovery is becoming f^nt. 
Early in May he was summoned to come at once 
to Pencarrow. He came, but in those days of no 
telegraph and no railways he was not in time to 
see her alive. He arrived at Pencarrow on May 
5th only to find that she had died the day before. 
It was the first overmastering sorrow of his life. 
Young people have but a fwnt beHef in the reality 
of death till he presents himself in very deed and 
truth, and forces an uninlling homage. Moles- 
worth wrote to pour out his anguish to Mrs. 
Grote : — 

May 6, 1836. 
Mv DEAR Mrs, Grote — I write to you as you are 
one who can and will sympathise with me without utter- 
ing that conventional jargon of sorrow which to me is 
disgusting and makes me savage to listen to. I arrived 
here last night ; my sister had ceased to breathe the 
middle of the day before. She died quietly from the 
effusion of the water on the brain ; calm and collected, 
though frequently in torture ; without a murmur ; well 
aware for some time that death was approaching, she 
never expressed a fear nor an apprehension, and longed for 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



« FAMILY AFFAIRS 105 

dissolution as the tranquil sleep from agony. Oik single 
thought filled her mind, and that was of me and what I 
was doing. Even her delirium consisted in a ^cy that 
the was going to bear me speak } and her anxiety was to 
hear what I said. Not once did she express 3 wish for 
me to be near her. She knew I could not leave town 
with honour,^ and her entreaties to her mother were to 
conceal the extent of her danger lest I might be tempted 
to bring myself into trouUe on her account ; all proved 
that she loved me with an intense affection which I felt 
in return for her ; others may love me as well, but no 
one can ever feel with me like her, for she alone could 
appreciate my sentiments and opinions. She shared in 
all the good and bad qualities of my temper and character. 
I had educated her and well, for in mental resources she 
found a resource in long years of suffering. ... I feel 
this blow more than I can express, more than I should 
like any one to know except yourself. The only tie of 
really strong affection is broken asunder. I had hoped 
that we never should have been separated. I looked 
forward to her rejoicing in my renown and glorying in 
my honour. Her last consolations were the praises which 
I have in some slight degree earned this year, though to 
her they seemed not adequate. I feel paralysed f(^ the 
present. . . . Do write to me. I have one more trial 
to undergo, the horror of which to me is inconceivable 
to you — that of seeing her consigned to a cold damp 
vault and of hearing the burial service read over her, and 
bearing a part in that hideous mummery. I would give 

■ On »5th April lije Lord Morpeth brought forwird the Itiih tithe 
neuBrc, which would biic bad the eflcct. If puKd, of devoting the mrplM 
fmdi of the Engliih Church in Irelimd to the religiotu end moral Initniction 
af ill clutcf in Irelend withonl diitinctiiia of need. 



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io6 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chat. 

anything to bury her in a fiivouritc spot in my grounds, 
under the dear sky, and erect a tomb for mysdf along- 
side of her. The baneful and noxious aspect of tnj 
ancestral tomb creates in me a loathing which I cannot 
understand. For myself I will force my heirs under 
enormous penalties to bury me in this manner. Would 
that I could devise any means to place her there too. I 
am a^id there are none. I can write no more. — Believe 
me, dear Mrs. Grote, yours ever sincerely grateful, 

William Molesworth. 

The revolt which young Molesworth so 
passionately expressed against the mummeries of 
fiineral ceremonies was more generally felt than 
he perhaps at that time realised, for by nearly 
universal consent a great change has taken place 
in the direction of greater simplicity. We now 
feel that we honour the dead, and act more 
harmoniously with the feelings of the hving, by 
abandoning a great part of the trappings and the 
suits of woe that characterised funeral ceremonies 
three-quarters of a century ago. In this, as in 
so many other things, Molesworth was before his 
time. His outburst against the burial service 
will grate harshly on the ears of some readers. 
Let not those who hear in that service only the 
words of peace and dignified consolation, speak or 
think harshly of those less fortunate in this respect 
than themselves. Huxley, overwhelmed by the 
greatest sorrow of his life, standing by the open 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



n FAMILY AFFAIRS 107 

grave of his firat-bca-n child, was revolted by the 
words, " What advantageth it me if the dead rise 
not? Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we 
die," interpreting them to mean that man's main 
and perhaps only inducement to lead a life other 
than one of animal indulgence is to be found in 
the hope of the resurrection. And he felt that 
the words relaxed the stimulus to a life of 
strenuous, unselfish effort at the very moment 
when the mourners most needed help and en- 
couragement to take up the burden of everyday 
duty again. Matthew Arnold's sonnet, "The 
Better Part," strikes a nobler note — 

Hath man no second life ? Pitch thit one high. 

It can hardly be doubted, too, that to a man of Sir 
William Molesworth's temperament it was nothing 
less than revolting to stand at the grave of his 
beautifiil and gifted young sister and give hearty 
thanks to the Almighty that it had pleased him to 
deliver her out of the miseries of this world. It 
is one thing to bear calamity with courage, and 
another to pretend that b^ is good, and that 
bitter anguish is a source of joy and thankfulness. 
In judging of Sir William Molesworth's atti- 
tude on religious questions, no one should tail to 
bear in mind the evolution in religious thought 
which has taken place since 1836. At that time, 
any one who was not cert^n that he held the key 



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toS SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

to all the greatest mysteries of life and death was 

condemned as an infidel or an atheist. Now we 

accept as a commonplace the lines of Tennyson : — 

There is more faith in honeit doubt, 

Believe me, dun in half the creeds. 

What religion was among the Clapham sect 
early in the nineteenth century, has been portrayed 
in a lively feshion by Thackeray in describing the 
childhood of Ojlonel Newcome. What religion 
■was by law may be gathered from the fact that 
by an Act of William and Mary, unrepealed as 
late as 1823, it was enacted that for the oiFence 
of denying the Trinity a man was subjected to a 
fine for the first offence ; for the second offence 
he was fined and imprisoned ; while for the third 
offence the punishment was death. Serious people 
carefully avoided for themselves or their children 
all amusements, however innocent. A very large 
part of the religion of that epoch consisted in a 
belief in hell fire,* and it was held to be necessary 
to salvation to believe that an All-Merciful God 
would consign the vast majority of His creatures, 

> If ID]' leider ii incliDcd to doubt thii Mitemmt, be u iavited to refo- 

to DrvflM mJ Msral Smgifir diUra, bjr the Rev. luic Wittt, D.D. Dr. 

Watt! died ibont bilf ■ ecatnrjr before Molenrortb wu bom, but hii bynus 

held tbe field of popalir theology well into the middle of tl 

century. Two ipcciment Bay htrc be quoted i"^ 

"There i> ■ dreadful Hell 

And evaUiting paint, 

There imDen mult with devili dwell 

In dirkntM, fire, ind chxim." 



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VI FAMILY AFFAIRS 109 

including unbaptized infants, to its torments for 
ever and ever. Every one who could not believe 
this, and at the same time apply to the Deity 
every epithet of reverence and adoration, was 
considered and called an athdst. Molesworth's 
friend, John Mill, was a leader in the revolt 
against this devil-worship which went by the name 
of religion. The celebrated passage in Mill's 
Examinaiion of Sir WHUam Hamilton's Philosophy t 
though written later than the period now under 
review, is illustrative of the struggle then being 
made by some of the wisest and best men in 
England to relieve their countrymen from the 
incubus of the popular eschatology of the day. 
" I will call no being good who is not what I 
mean when I apply that epithet to my iellow- 
creatures ; and if such a being can sentence me 
to hell for not so calling him, to hell I will go." 
John Mill's views were expressed in the p^es of 
tlie London and the London and fVestminster Re- 
view, and Molesworth's open sympathy with them 
as well as his ownership of the Revievo completely 
identified him with them. They cost him his seat 
in East Cornwall, and put an insuperable bar to 

"'Tit dugeram to provokE ■ God I 
Hu fona ind veogevKe oonc can (ell; 
The •trake of fail almigbtjr rod 
Sbill isid jroung liimcn quick to Hell." 
SouitiK people, when thn theology wu offered them, could either believe 
and go DUd, like Cowper, or diibelicve ind mock, like Moleiworth, 



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no SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

the fulfilment of his dearest hopes with regard to 
his marriage. It is true that he never allowed 
himself to be called an atheist without contra- 
diction, and in one of his letters to Mrs. Grote 
he says he is going to prosecute a Newcastle' 
paper for saying that he was "a wretch without 
a God " ; but in such cases the denial of the 
person most interested is ex ky-pothest worthless, 
and produces no effect whatever on the accusers. 
Before the end of his life, in an able speech on the 
Clergy Reserves in Canada in 1853, he said that 
he preferred the doctrines and disdpiine of the 
Church of England to those of any other religious 
denomination. 

Sir William wrote with his usual frankness to 
his mother and sister about his disappointment 
in love. The lady whom he wished to many was 
young, of his own station in life, the daughter 
of one of his neighbours in Cornwall. He was 
at first cordially received by her family as well 
as by the lady herself. Then an insuperable 
difficulty was r^sed, that he was *'a Radical in 
polidcs and an infidel in religion." In vain 
Molesworth invited the closest scrutiny into his 
character and conduct. Character and conduct 
were held to have no relation to religion. He 
was ordered to relinquish his opinions or to give 

' There wu tome prcMpect of hia offeriog hinuelf u i Pirliiuneatarj 
ctodidite for Heweutle ibcmt 1S36. 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



VI FAMILY AFFAIRS ill 

up his hopes of a happy marriage. He was 
naturally in a fever of rage, but upon points of 
principle he was inflexible. "I have softened 
down my opinions," he writes, "to the verge of 
falsehood, but that barrier I will not pass." The 
struggle lasted over the two years, 1834-36, when 
the lady was finally lost to htm by her marrying 
another suitor. I am informed, however, that to 
the end of her life her family knew that if left to 
herself she would have given a very difftrent 
answer to the rejected lover. How much happier 
it would have been for him if the lady had had the 
course to choose for herself, and had acted on 
the obvious truism that the people chiefly con- 
cerned in a marriage are the bride and brid^room. 
If they arc pleased, the sanction of the rest of 
humanity can at a pinch be dispensed with. But 
women's rights had not made enough progress in 
the thirties to enable any women but those who 
were courageous to the verge of recklessness thus 
to take their destiny into their own kee^ng. 

It would be idle to attempt to conceal that 
Molesworth was bitterly mortified by his refusal ; 
for he did not nurse his woes in silent. In this, 
as in most other circumstances of his life, he 
openly proclaimed what he was feeling, and 
invited the sympathy of his friends. The con- 
solation offered by Roebuck was to read his friend 
an admirable lecture, " which proved most clearly 



n,gN..(jNGoogle 



itz SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

that love was only an inflammation of the brain." 
It is not clear how much benefit he derived from 
this dissertation ; probably more relief was obtwned 
from giving free play to his fighting instinct ; for 
his friends spoke of him Invariably being " in great 
glee whenever he hopes for a row." He also 
plunged with renewed ardour into the study of 
philosophy. " You ask what I am about ? Study- 
ing Epicurus, reading everything I can find in 
innumerable authors with regard to him. Ol^ect 
I have in view is the history of philosophy in the 
time of Thomas Hobbes." 

From Mrs. Grote's memoir it appears that 
a little later there was a chance of another 
marriage, which also came to nothing, for the 
same reasons which had destroyed his hopes of 
success in his first suit ; but his heart was not so 
much in this second suit as it had been in the first. 
He writes to Mrs. Grote that he is convinced that 
Miss X. pady No. 2] had never cared for him. 

Otherwise I should have to reproach myself with 
doing what I trust I have never done, and never will do, 
viz. playing with a young woman's affections. . . . 
Though I should not wish to be thought ill of by her, I 
wish never to be present to her mind, more especially if 
any feelings of lilcing ever did exist, and romance keeps 
that accursed sentiment alive which has made such a fool 
of me, I hope for the last time. 

Writing in September 1837 to his sister Mary 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



Ti FAMILY AFFAIRS 113 

after his election for Leeds, the whole of the ex- 
penses of which had been defrayed by the con- 
stituency, Sir William says, referring to an elecUon 
contest at Bodmin : — 

Having no election [expenies] of my own I can ^ord 
something to the good cause, as they [the Whigs] shall 
know. . . . Providence has ordained two things with 
regard to me.; first, that I shall always be in hot water, 
and secondly, that I shall have no incumbrances to distract 
me Irom public duties. God be praised. Amen, 

As the subject of Molesworth's views on marriage 
has been mentioned, it may be convenient to quote 
here another letter written several years later to 
his sister Mary, in 1 844, after his own marriage, 
which indicates that his opinions on one of the 
most important of social questions were more in 
accordance with what is even now considered the 
advanced school than with those popularly enter- 
t^ed in his own time : — 

Is it the pretty Miss Y. Q. [he wrote] who is going 
to be married to Lord L. ? How happy Lady Y. Q. 
must be in getting so admirable a match for her daughter. 
How lucky ! that sweet girl ! Her husband will be a 
marquis, and is one of the lowest debauchees and most 
dq)raved men about town. 



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CHAPTER VII 

DECLINE OP PHILOSOPHIC RADICALISM 

It has been seen that the year 1836 was a gloomy 
one for Sir William Molesworth. All through 
his life up to that year he had had nearly every- 
thing the heart of man could desire except good 
health. In 1836 he lost his sister by death ; he 
was obliged finally to relinquish the hope of marry- 
ing the woman he loved ; he had likewise to face 
. the fact that it would be impossible for him again 
to carry the constituency of East Cornwall. This 
was not made the pleasanCer by the fact that his 
constituency was also his home, and the alienated 
supporters his neighbours and personal friends. 
But as if to prove up to the hilt the truth of the 
saying that when troubles come they come not 
singly but in battalions, to all these disasters was 
added another : his health, always fragile, com- 
pletely broke down, and he had a sharp attack of 
dangerous illness which compelled him to absent 



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Til DECLINE OF PHILOSOPHIC RADICALISM 115 
himself for a time from all political and other 
occupations. This was in the early part of the 
summer. When the crisis of the illness was over 
it was necessary for him to seek complete rest, 
and he left England for Germany (July), accom- 
panied by Lady Molesworth and his only remain- 
ing sister, Mary. They joined Mr. Francis 
Molesworth at Frankfort, and went on together 
to Prague and later to Berlin. 

He had left his political affairs mainly in the 
hands of his friend Charles Buller. He had, 
however, before leaving England, arrived at the 
important decision of announcing to the electors 
of East Cornwall that it was not his intention to 
ask them to return him ;^atn. He wrote his 
retiring address in haste, just before starting for 
the continent, and left it with Buller to correct 
and to issue or not according to the advice given 
by his friends. It was issued on the 7th September 
1836. The reasons which influenced him in re- 
tiring from Cornwall were that his Radical views 
and his open expression of them had alienated the 
support of the Whigs in the constituency ; and in 
the absence of the ballot the Whigs commanded 
a great deal more electoral strength than their 
actual numbers would justify. Sir William's 
advocacy of Free Trade was tolerated by the Whigs 
as long as the fortress of Protection appeared to 
be impregnable ; ^ut as soon as the abolition of 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



ii6 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

the Corn Laws approached the region of practical 
politics many of his former supporters b^an to 
fall away ; those of them who wished to be as 
little unfriendly as possible began to tell him what 
an excellent member he would make for some 
other constituency, that he had not enough regard 
for the agricultural interest, and so forth. Then 
he was credited, or, in the eyes of the Whigs, dis- 
credited, with everything that appeared in the 
pages of The London and ff^estminsier Review. 

I knew [he wrote] that the Review would lose me 
my seat, and it was the first pretext against me. I was 
called upon to deny certain opinions in one of John's 
[J. S. Mill's] political articles. I refused to do so, and 
the leader of the Whigs, Sir Colman Rashleigh, immedi- 
ately wrote to me that he would not support me. 

Buller suggested sweeping alterations in the 
retiring address. He ur^ed the neces^ty of com- 
pression and of moderation. He wrote : — 

As you have no right to attack on the present occa- 
sion any but the Cornish Whigs, all attacks on Whigs 
in genoal must be struck out. 

The final outcome was a manly and digmfied 
document, quite sufficiently outspoken to be char- 
acteristic of the signature at its foot. Sir William 
reiterated the chief points of his own political 
creed : the ballot, free trade, national education, 
reform of the House of Lords, religious equality. 



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vu DECLINE OF PHILOSOPHIC RADICALISM 117 
household suffrage, and better government for 
Ireland. By supporting measures -mth these ends 
in view he had alienated, he said, many of the 
most powerful of his original supporters, and he 
must in any future contest, therefore, expect their 
hostility rather than th^r ud. Under these cir- 
cumstances he believed his candidature would on 
his own part be a useless expenditure of money, 
and would also endanger the seat of his colleague. 
He therefore intimates his intention of retiring ; 
in conclusion he advises the voters, not as their 
member but as a brother elector, to make the 
ballot a test question. 

That question is now the test of Liberal princJpla. 
He mocks you who talks of Freedom of Election, and at 
the same time refuses to protect you by secret suffrage. 
He neither deserves the nunc of a Liberal, nor the sup- 
port of Liberals, who will consent to leave you at the 
merc^ of your landlord when so easy a remedy can be 
obtained. 

The nodon of retiring altt^ether from political 
life, though it had attractions to one of studious 
habits who was also so enthusiastic a horticulturist 
and lover of trees, was dispelled as he regained his 
normal measure of health. In September 1836 he 
wrote to Mrs. Grote from Prague : — 

Now with regard to the rest of your letter, I think 
you are wrong in accusing me of an absolute wish to 
shrink from the combat ; on the contrary, I stated my 



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ii8 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH ckw. 

anxious hope of being of service to the cause through 
The Londatiy and as long as that Review is carried oo 
with energy you cannot accuse me of deserting the 
party. I did certainly indulge in a feeling of pleasure at 
the idea of being once again free hoax the trammels of 
Parliament, and sought out reasons for justifying this 
feeling in your eyes ; but, in truth, I will do exactly as 
you like, for you arc the only person who is invariably 
kind to mc whenever I commit follies or errors, and 
whose rcprools even sound to mc more pleasing than the 
praises of others. I will come into Parliament again if 
you wish it, and if I can get a constituency that will take 
me with a clear declaration of my opinions. I am glad 
that I am free from Cornwall, for I was in a most painful 
position there, with hardly a gentleman to support me. 

Accordingly, as soon as Sa William returned to 
England he threw himself with characteristic energy 
and thoroughness into the bu^ess of finding 
another constituency. That be dtd not do this in 
a perfunctory spirit is proved by the following 
letter, which is preserved among the Pencarrow 
MSS. It is from a brother M.P., Mr. Ward, 
who was also looking for a new constituency and 
compluns that, go where he will, Molesworth has 
forestalled him : — ■ 

Nov. 23, 1836. 

My dear Molesworth — You are by fer the greatest 
borough monger or borough monopoliser now in exist- 
ence. Go where you will. North, South, East, or West, 
one is sure to fall in with you. I had a very snug settle- 
ment in Westminster, but Sir Wm, Molesworth has 



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VII DECLINE OF PHILOSOPHIC RADICALISM 119 

ousted mc ! I was talkicd of once with some favour at 
Newcastle, but Sir Wm. Molesworth has got a requisition 
in his pocket fi-om all my quondam well-wishers ! I 
might seek refuge in Leeds, but Sir Wm. Molesworth's 
name again stares me in the fece ! Now I want much 
to know where jom fix yourself, and more particularly 
what you intend to do about Newcastle, where I think 
I might have a very fair prospect of establishing myself 
oimfortably. Of course, however, I do not dream of 
thb until I have clearly ascertained your decision, etc, 
etc 

Leeds was finally decided on, but before follow- 
ing the fortunes of Sir William in that constituency 
it mil be necessary to refer to the causes which 
had brought about something very nearly resem- 
bling the annihilation of the Radical party of which 
Sir William had had such strong hopes eighteen 
months earlier. 

The Reform Bill of 1832 had been carried on 
a wave of national feeling so high that a great 
number of intelligent observers looked upon it 
as the preliminary symptom of a revolution. 
The supporters and the opponents of reform were 
alike mistaken in their forecast of its results. 
The Reformers expected that the unquestionable 
improvement which the Reform Bill had accom- 
plished in the Representative system of the country 
would bring about a new Heaven and a new Earth.^ 

'In anticipation of the pouing of tlic Refomt Bill mcD had paraded the 
•ttceti artjinf ■ tdack flif inwribcd, " Put not jonr tnul ia Princci," md 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



110 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chai-. 

Their opponents thought all the glories of Eng- 
land would disappear with scot and lot, pot- 
wallopers, and constituencies without inhabitants 
like Gatton and Old Sarum. Neither expectation 
was fulfilled. We can see now the immense import- 
ance of the change that had been effected ; but its 
immet^te consequences were disappointing ; things 
seemed to go on much the same as they did before. 
The Radicals blamed one another for this. They 
felt that their party was without effective leader- 
ship. John Mill in an article in the London and 
Westminster of October 1835 declared that the 
one thing needful for the party in Parliament was 
a leader. He complained bitterly of the absence 
of a man of action, and asked, " Why does not 
Mr. Grote exert himself ? There is not a man in 
Parliament who could do so much or who is more 
thoroughly the people's friend."' Place declared 
that there was not a man in the Radical party with 
the exception of Madame Grote. 

Place wrote to Falconer, September 1836 : — 
It is a somewhat curious circumstance that Madame 

> CTOwn Maflcd with «rmw bbcUcd "Ichihod"' — Uie glory hju deputed. 
So eminently nne tnd enlightened ■ roin u Dr. Arnold wrote ia itji ; 
*' My Knie of tbe evil of the timei ind to what I un Innging op my 
children li overwhclnuagly bitter. All the moral and phyticiL world appean 
ID eiictly to lonaunee the coming of tbe greit diy of the Lord, i.i. ■ period 
of (earful fiiititioa, to terminate the editing itate of thing! — whether to 
terminate the whole editecce of the human race, neither man nor angel 

* P. 47, Jdu Snarl MUl, by Aleiaadei Bain, LL.D. 



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HI DECUNE OF PHILOSOPHIC RADICALISM 121 

Grotc should scold at Molesworth and talk of a band of 
heroes ; where she found one of them I cannot tclL Shty 
ya ski was the only member of Parliament with whom I 
had any intercourse in the later third of the session. We 
communicated ftcely, but we could find no heroes — no, 
DO decent legislators. We found that the supinenesa and 
truckling of the so-called Radicals in the House of 
Commons were the cause of what is called the apathy of 
the people, and sure I am that in our hearts we both 
wished the Reformers should be well cart-whipped, and 
that the Whigs and Tories were dead and damned. . . . 
P.S. — I think you may as well send this letter to 
Molesworth. 

Molesworth's impatience in regard to Grote's 
inactivity is evident from phrases already quoted ; 
for instance when he says that Hume was worth a 
hundred of " your do-nothing gents," or that 
Grote had postponed his motion on the ballot and 
" oijght to be hanged for it." The same feeling 
is intUcated by Buller's references to Grote, In 
the modern phrase it iras evident that whatever 
his virtues and excellencies as a scholar and a 
politician, Grote was not a man to go tiger-shooting 
with. It fell to Sir William Molesworth's lot to 
express what many were feeling to those whom it 
most concerned, and he complained openly to 
Mrs. Grote that her husband left him in the lurch 
and did not give him the practical personal support 
which he had a right to expect. The cry of the 
moment among the Whigs was for " Union among 



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i»» SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

Refonners " ; this meant that the Radical Iamb 
should lie down inside the Whig lion, and Sr 
William wrote in The London and Westmimter 
Review an article in which, as he s^d privately, 
he "tore to pieces this accursed cry." Extracts 
from letters written by Sir William to Mrs. 
Grote in the autumn of 1836 illustrate his attitude 
and the resentment which he was feeling at Grote's 
incapacity to take a strong line as leader of the 
Radical party. The first of these letters was 
written on 24th October 1836, from Berlin, where 
he was staying with his brother Francis, then a 
student of the Berlin University. 

Pray use your influence with our friends not again to 
raise the cry of " Union amongst Reformers." So fer 
from its producing union, it will produce disunion as 
destroying all unity of purpose. Ballot, triennial parlia- 
ments, extension of the suffrage, and reform of the House 
of Lords are the only means by which the quiet progress 
of reform can be secured. To call upon us to support 
equally men who reject these measures is to command 
us to elect men who will be against us in the day of 
difficulty. It is better to have a smaller body of re- 
formers who will boldly advocate these measures than a 
larger body of pseudo-reformers, a still smaller body of 
whom will act. The cry of union among reformers can 
never again be raised with success. The people are 
indifferent to these things, and the Radicals in the House 
by their timidity are losing their hold over the nation. 
By acting boldly without reference to the existence or 



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VII DECLINE OF PHILOSOPHIC RADICALISM laj 

non-existence of the Ministry they will regain their I 
influence and rally round them a party which will be / 
irresistible. Pray stir them up. See Rintoul.i I read 
one of his articles in which he talked of the Tories being 
in before Easter ; most likely, and no harm will result ; it 
will make our men determined ; destroy the Whig party 
by dividing it into Whigs and Radicals. Consider ! the 
Whigs won't take the only means of doing anything. 
The Tories won't do anything. What is gained or lost 
by the one or the other in power ? Apathy and timidity 
with the Whigs. Courage and the energies of the 
people incited and developing in opposition. . . . There 
can be no doubt about the alternative. . . . Now is the 
time. Oh for some rcspecuble man of action ! Oh Ibr a 
good newspaper ! Both are behind the times and are 
vainly attempting to blow an expiring spark into a' flame 
instead of seeking for new materiab and new principles 
(rf combustion. When the enthusiasm of the people is 
djn'ng out upon a particular subject, never attempt to 
excite it again, for you are sure to lail. You perhaps 
may think me wild, but having been out of the political 
world for some months, I am cooler and less prejudiced 
than those who are heated by the events around them. 
When we meet, however, I expect to hear the feelings of 
our leaders. We ought to assemble to see if we can 
devise any line of policy ; or are we to continue aimless 
and purposeless doing nothing ? I wish I were ten years 
older, and a ready and fluent orator. 

Pray write me a line to the Reform Club. ... I hope 
to be in town on the 29th, as I shall leave Hamburg on the 
26th at two o'clock in the morning. I will dine with 

> Editor of the ^taUr. 



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114 SIR WILUAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

you on Monday the 30th. Ask some Rads. to meet me^ 
honest men and true. Six is your hour ? — Yours sincerely, 
Wm. Molesworth. 

The second letter is dated 15th December 
1836, and shows that his dissatisfaction with the 
lack of support extended to him by the Grotes 
had been intensified since the date of the previous 
letter. The MS. is annotated in Mrs. Grote's 
hand, " Sot W. M. compluns of want of supptxt 
from us " : — 

Der. 15, iS]6. 
Dear Mrs. Grots — I am sorry that you are sorry, 
and that I should have said anything to grieve you. I 
intended to make you angry : my letter may be divided 
into two parts, one which refers to you as Mrs. Grote, 
the other as an influential member of the Radical party. 
. . . With regard to politics I have said nothing wliich 
I do not conscientiously think, though I may have ex- 
pressed it rather harshly ; for this harshness I am sorry. 
I commissioned Falconer and Roebuck to ask of you all 
a question of importance. The answer which I got 
proved to me that you were all dreaming. You say my 
political conduct is correct : you must know that the 
most earnest admonitions have been made to me not to 
do as I have done, because I should be left in the lurch 
by you all. I said and again repeat that those amongst 
you who ought to take the lead won't stir. For instance, 
in the PoUtical Tract Society, Hume writes to inform me 
that I am to be a member of it instead of Grote. Why 
not both ? You see how the Whigs arc attacking me, 
the Irish will be furious with me. You say ym are with 



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Til DECLINE OF PHILOSOPHIC RADICALISM laS 

me, but will one of you stir hand or foot to nuke public 
tlut approbation ? A declaration of a public description 
from one or two of jou would further the cause amaz- 
ingly and carry half the battle, yet will one of you enter 
the arena now ? If so, in the second week in January 
there is to be a dinner at Bath. Roebuck, Leader, 
Napier, and myself attend, thence I go to Leeds. It is of 
immense importance to me personally, second to the cause, 
that I should appear supported by Radicals of maturer 
weight and consideration. Will Grote come to that 
meeting at Bath i If he approves of my conduct and 
fears not pubUdy to sanction me he wilL So far for 
politics. The weather has been the worst I ever knew. 
I have not been out of the house for the last week. 
Ttt-morrow I go to Totnes, thence for a few days to 
Pencarrow. Have you seen anything of John Mill i 
How is he looking? — Believe me, dear Mrs. Grote, 
yours most sincerely and truly, 

Wm. Molesworth. 

Grote did not go to the Bath dinner, and did 
not take any other means of giving Molesworth 
the public support he asked for. Grote cUd not 
even accede to Molesworth's request to write for 
the London and Westminster Review. Professor 
Bain quotes a letter froin Mrs. Grote to Roebuck 
dated April 1837 : — 

Molesworth wrote a flippant letter in mighty bad taste 
about our ceasing to write for the L. and ff^^ alFecttng 
despair, etc. Now I merely wrote to John, by G.'s desire, 
a simple refusal to ftirnish an article on Greek History. 
M. chuses to book it as a piece of party feeling, etc 



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ii6 SIR WILUAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

Place wrote to Roebuck in the same month 
(December 1836) to urge that he and Moles- 
worth should take an independent line which 
should induce the Radicals throughout the country 
to look on them as men on whom they could 
rely as leaders. A month later, January 1837, 
Place wrote again ' : — " I have had a long but 
amicable dispute with Madame Grote. She is by 
iar the best of the party, but she is so surrounded 
by dawdlers that her own strong understanding 
gives way, and she is blinded to the fact that to 
compromise, as she calls it, is to submit." In 
a letter from Roebuck to his wife, he attributes a 
personal motive to Mrs. Grote in keeping her 
husband back from publicly associating himself 
with Molesworth, but there is no proof that the 
accusation was well founded. Grote was much 
more fitted for the part of a student and scholar 
than he was for that of a party leader. But this 
charitable explanation of Grote's timidity did not 
commend itself to Roebuck. 

** You are quite right," he writes to Mrs. Roebuck 
in January 1837, "as to Mrs. Grote ; she is and will be 
for ever jealous of everybody who puts Grote into the 
shade. She ought in truth to be jealous of Grote, for 
he himself causes his own eclipse. If he would dt 
anything, his reward in praise and esteem would be 
boundless." 

I Leidcr'i Lift sfRmlmti. 



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vii DECLINE OF PHILOSOPHIC RADICALISM 127 

At the Bath dinner Molesworth spoke in a 
very Radical stmn, attacking the Whig Govern- 
ment, and reiterating his support of the ballot, 
household suffrage, and army reform, and his 
opposition to the Corn Laws, the Irish Church 
and University Tests. He was in consequence 
practically sent to Coventry by the party whips, and 
was not invited to the grand Liberal dinner held at 
Drury Lane Theatre at the beginning of the session 
of 1837. The failing health of William IV. made 
a General Election within a few months a practical 
certainty, and the Whigs would have been very 
pleased to see Molesworth excluded from the new 
Parliament. The Radical party dwindled more and 
more, the greater number of the Radicals being 
absorbed into that of the Whigs. Mrs. Grote 
wrote in her Notes, " Mr. Grote and about five 
others find themselves left to sustain the Radical 
opinions of the House of Commons, the Whigs 
becoming more and more 'conservative,' relying 
upon the Irish to keep them in office." Mr. J. S. 
Mill, writing in calm review of the circumstances 
in after-years, said that he felt that too much had 
been expected of the Radicals in Parliament in 
the years immediately following the passing of 
the Reform Bill ; that their lot was cast in a 
period of inevitable reaction when the public 
mind desired rest rather than a rapid progress 
with a reform programme. But the disappoint- 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



Ii8 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chat. 

ment at the time was extreme, and was expressed 
with considerable acerbity. The discomfiture of 
the Radical party was intensified by the flood of 
loyal enthusiasm which greeted the acces^on of 
the young Queen in 1837, When Macaulay 
returned from India in 1839 he said he foimd 
the Radical party reduced to "Grote and his 
wife." This was not exactly true, but was true 
enough for an epigram. 

Before the end of 1836 n^otiations were on 
foot with a view to Sir William being adopted as 
the Uberal candidate for Leeds, and on the 2nd 
January 1837, at a public meeting of the electors, 
a resolution was carried with great enthu^asm, 
choo^ng Mr. Eldward Baines and Sir William 
Molesworth as candidates for the borough in the 
event of a dissolution. The resolution was a very 
long one, and referred more than once to the 
"bounden duty" of all Liberals to support the 
Liberal Ministry ; the candidates named were 
commended on the ground that they could be 
relied on *' carefully to support our Reforming 
Administration." Sir William's uncompromi^ng 
honesty comes out tn his reply, addressed to the 
chairman of the meeting. He plunged at once 
into the thorny question of his attitude towards 
the Whig Government. 

With reference to tny support of the present Admim's- 
tratton, I beg leave to inform you that undoubtedly I 



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VII DECLINE OF PHILOSOPHIC RADICALISM 129 

ihould support their measures if I approve of them. If, 
hovcvcr, they do not make the Ballot and other measurei 
open questions, my firm belief is that their tenure of 
office will be short. In case of their not assenting to 
open questions, I consider it would be the duty of the 
Radical party to steadily pursue an independent line of 
policy, whatever the consequences may be. . . . If by 
supporting Minister? you mean that I will support them 
in opposition to the Tories — undoubtedly I will. If you 
mean that I must abstain from expressing my opinions in 
speeches, motions, or by amendments, through fear of 
indirectly destroying the present Administration, — then I 
must tell you I will not give that species of support, . . . 
If it be in any way intended to bind me in my future 
conduct to pursue a counc different from that which I 
have stated my intention of following, I must protest 
against the attempt and assure you that I will consent to 
no compromise of any kind. Till I receive such an ex- 
planation, I cannot accept the invitation. 

While the negottations which followed the 
despatch of this letter were pending, he thought 
that the frank expression of his views would 
probably put an end to the chance of his being 
accepted as a candidate. His expression in a 
private letter is, " Leeds won't do. Too many 
Whigs there." However, Leeds did do. Another 
naeeting was called, under another churman, on 
20th January 1837, and it was agreed to accept 
Sir William Molesworth's candidature on his own 
terms, and the resolution, which was passed, with 
fifty or sixty dissentients, expressly stated that the 



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ijo SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

meeting entirely disclMmed the intention or the 
wish to restrain him from the full expresMon of 
his political opinions either by speech or vote in 
the House of Commons. With this resolution 
Sir William expressed his entire satisfaction, and he 
proceeded as soon as possible to visit Leeds, and 
in the meantime he laid before the constituency 
copies of his speeches and articles on political 
subjects, so that the voters could obtain an accurate 
knowledge of the past conduct of the man who 
was about to ask for their suffrages. His first 
visit to Leeds was in March 1837. He was 
accompanied by his brother Arscott, and by his 
agent Mr. Woollcombe, whose letters to Lady 
Molesworth descritnng her son's reception afford 
a curious illustration of the distance between 
Yorkshire and Cornwall in the days before nil- 
ways. He describes Leeds much in the same 
way as a traveller might now describe Moscow or 
Teheran. 

Lebim, Marei 17, 1837. 
My DBAR Madam — As you will be anxious to heat 
how we get on, I have set apart an hour before the 
dinner [a public function at which Sir Wm. was to spcakj 
for an epbtle to you. I am happy to say that Sir Wm. 
has borne his journey exceedingly well and seems better 
for it. He does not cough at all. We arrived last night 
at Pomiret, and this morning were waited on by a depu- 
tation of wouid-be constituents — the dirtiest -loolting 
dogs you ever beheld, but they say all mighty rich. 



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Til DECLINE OF PHILOSOPHIC RADICALISM 131 
Then follow some remarks intended to be 
humorous about their all returning with rich and 
smoke-dried wives. The description of the Leeds 
ladies sounds like that of Esquimaux. 

Leeds itself [says Mr. WooUcoinbc] is anything but 
a handsome pkce. It is, if possible, twenty times 
blacker than the blackest parts of London. On our 
arrival here we went to the Cloth Hall, where the 
Baronet addressed about 15,000 men with effect, was 
well heard and applauded. We then adjourned to the 
hotel, and I commenced my studies, which are to report 
on the prospect of success, and to advise the course to 
be pursued. 

The election consequent on Queen Victoria's 
accession took place in July 1837, and was a 
complete triumph for Sir William. Woollcombe 
writes in high spirits to Lady Molesworth ; his 
first letter is about the nomination. 

Lebds, Juij 17, 1837. 
Dbar Lady Molesworth — I snatch a moment to 
tell you we have had a most triumphant reception to-day 
at the nomination. The show of hands, Baines and 
Molesworth. The sight almost worth being beaten to 
see ; hilly 70,000 persons present. The Baronet (ours) 
fiilly prepared to smash the Tory Baronet, but could not 
get a hearing. The Blues were evidently afraid that 
the B^ would thrash the man, which he would have 
done most properly. I am (]uite as sanguine as ever, 
and all is well, though the bullying is perfectly terrible. 
Excuse this hasty scrawl, but I know you would rather 



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133 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

hear what I can write than nothing. Ellis will, I fair, 
be beat for Bodmin. — Ever yours, 

Thos. Woollcombb. 

The next letter begins by describing Sir 
WiDiam's triumph on the polling day, and the 
generous hospioJity of Leeds to its new member, 
and continues : — 

Wc left Leeds after the chairing (during which the 
members were favoured with one stone and three red 
herrings only) for Manchester via Huddersficld, at the 
last stage from whence the innkeeper recognised us and 
coolly said, "Gentlemen, I advise you not to say who 
you arc on your arrival, or you will probably get killed 
by Oasticr's men." However, on we went, were soon 
recognised, and such a scene ensued as only Cruikshank 
could do justice to. Wc were very popular, however, 
and glasses of brandy and vnter were proffered in 
abundance. They insisted on a speech, which, when 
the horses were to, the Baronet gave them, and such an 
cfFusion of Radicalism you never heard. Nothing Sir 
Francis Burdett ever said came the least near it. It 
took beautifully, however, and we were permitted to 
depart with sound heads amidst the enthusiastic cheen 
of the populace. No reporter was, I hope, present \ 
The town was in a dreadful state : the militaiy galloping 
in all directions, and had we remained ten minutes 
longer alt would have been tumult. The scenes of 
violence in the North seem to have been quite un- 
paralleled, and the loss of life has been serious. We 
came from Manchester to Birmingham on the Grand 
Junction Railway at the rate of 25 miles an hour. The 



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vn DECLINE OF PHILOSOPHIC RADICALISM 133 

onl^ pleasant part of the performance is the saving of 
time. The motion is disagreeable, as is the noise i and 
on the whok I confidently predict that our steamers will 
bear the bell fi-om the railways. 

Mr. Woc41combe did not in thta instance greatly 
distinguish himself as a prophet ; he lived to take 
an active part in promoting the South Devon 
R^way, and was for many years Chairman of its 
Board of Directors. The gift of prophecy is, 
however, fortunately no necessary part of the 
equipment of a good letter-writer, and Mr. WooU- 
combe's letters are among the most racy in the 
Pencarrow collections. Describing the excitement 
caused by the elections in Cornwall, he writes in 

the latter part of the letter just quoted : " E 

keeps tolerably sane, but talks like a water-mill 
after heavy floods of rain." 

The rout of the Radicals in the General Election 
of 1837 has been referred to in a former chapter. 
Grote, indeed, retained his seat ; but from having 
been triumphantly returned at the head of the poll 
for the City of London in 1832, his first election, 
he now only crept in at the bottom with a miser- 
able majority of six votes. Mrs. Grote wrote : 
*' Everybody is ' consternated.' . . . Parkes is in 
the City looking horribly down, and croaking like 
an old hoarse crow." Grote's vexation, as we have 
seen, took the form of daily lamentations for the 
death of William IV. Hume had lost his seat. 



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134 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap.vii 

It was not only the left wing, but the whcJe party, 
which was crushed by the election of 1837. The 
three successive General Elections of 1 832, 1 834-35, 
and 1837 reduced the majority of the Whigs first 
trom 315 to 26, and then from 26 to 12. 

Sir William had predicted that Radicalism would 
revive if the energies and courage of the people 
were developed by the party being in opposition. 
He therefore bore the imminent downfall of the 
Whigs with serenity. " Your political gloom," he 
wrote to Mrs. Grote in the autumn of 1837, '* I 
don't share in. I think the Whigs miserable 
wretches, and shall rejoice when I hear their death- 
shriek . . . but I have a firm fdth in the progress 
of the human mind and in the steady advance of 
democracy, and I don't believe the Whigs can keep 
us back." He was certainly, as he said, not a man 
to conciliate his adversaries by honeyed speech. 



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CHAPTER VIII 

SIR WILLIAM MOLBSWORTH AS A COLONIAL 
REFORMER — THE TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE 

From the time of his first entering Parliament, 
Sir William Molcsworth bestowed a great deal of 
study and thought on the subject of the relation of 
the mother country to the Colonies. In 1830 
the Colonisation Society had been founded mainly 
in consequence of the exertions of that extra- 
ordinary man, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, whose 
gamut of experience ranged from the life of an 
attache to the British Embassies in Turin and 
Paris to that of a prisoner in Lancaster Castle. 
While he was watching the sky through prison 
bars, his mind not unnaturally dwelt upon the 
theory of punishment. He wrote two books from 
prison, one on the Punishment of Death, and one 
called A Letter from Sydnrf. The first seeks to 
show that punishments are deterrent in proportion 
to their certainty, not in proportion to their 



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136 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chaf. 

severity. In the opinion of good judges the 
amelioration and humanisation of the English 
criminal law are to a large extent due to the power 
with which this is set forth. The second, j1 Letter 
from Sydney, written under the pseudonym of 
Robert Gouger, is practicaUy an examination of 
the causes which had rendered the Australian 
Colonies useless to the mother country.* It was 
written with such force and with such a vivid 
realisation of an emigrant's position that no reader 
doubted for a moment that the author was an 
actual colonist.' It is said that when Wakefield 
was sentenced to three years' imprisonment in 
1827, he thought that his own future must neces- 
sarily be passed in the Colonies, and in order the 
better to prepare himself for this he read carefiilly 
every book he could get relating to New South 
Wales and Van Diemen's Land, as well as a long 
series of Colonial newspapers. The Letter from 
Sydney cantoned as an appendix practically the 
whole of what was afterwards known as Wakefield's 
system of colonisation. The main features of this 
system were that the government of each colony 
should assume possession of all unoccupied land, 
and should gradually sell it in small lots at a fairly 
high price ; that the fund thus brought into exist- 

I Edmatd GAbai fFak^dd, bj R. Gimett, C.B., LL.D. 
* Robert Oongcr w» the nime or is actual cotoaiit, but Wakefield and 
not be mote the Littir Jnm SyJuej. 



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VIII AS A COLONIAL REFORMER 137 

ence should be used to promote emigration ; that 
emigrants should be carefully selected, a preference 
bang given to the young ; that an equal number of 
both sexes should be sent out, and that the general 
body of emigrants should be representative of all 
classes and of a great variety of occupations. Im- 
mediately on coming out of prison Wakefield set to 
work to found, in 1830, the Colonisation Society, 
to carry these theories into practice. In his inter- 
esting book, already referred to, Dr. Garnett states 
that he has been unable to find out who were the 
original members of the Society, but he believes 
that Molesworth was among them. A further 
consideration of dates would probably convince 
Dr. Garnett that this was impossible. Sir William 
was in Italy during the whole of 1830; he was 
then only twenty years old, and had never lived in 
London or taken any part in public affairs. He 
probably joined the Colonisation Society in 1833,^ 
during the first session of the Reformed Parlia- 
ment. He certainly was a director of a company, 
called the South Australian Association, which was 
founded in 1834 as an outcome of the Colonisation 

' Sir WUliiDi'i fint importint Hoiuc of Commont ipeech on the tutc 
of the Colooiet, delimed on j^thjine 1E3S, iSbrda evidence ibat biiictiTe 
cQ-Dperatkii with Ihe Colooial Refornun began in 1133. In the codik of 
tbit ipeecb be ttii : " So lang t$ aatly five yein agD-— ■ tODf perit>d in > 
diott life — I took *D ictive part in the fooDdatioa of ■ colony (Sooth 
Aiulnlia), in which I feel ■ deep intercit on pnblie froundt, and hew 
proied it bf innrrinf penonil riik u i (rnitee reeponuble for the ufety of 
cmuiiienble fundi belongiag to ihit colon)'." 



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138 SIR WILUAM MOLESWORTH chm. 

Society. Mr. J. S. Mill, BuUcr, and Rintoul, 
editor of the Spectator, were keenly interested in 
the objects of the Society and of the Company. 
Wakefield was the moving spirit of both. In the 
words of Dr. Garnett, " Wakefield pulled every 
string, but his connection with the Company was 
not ostensible ; at that period it would have been 
inexpedient to mention it" The Colonisation 
Society was sufficiently influential to obtain in 
1836 the appointment of a Parliamentary Com- 
mittee on Colonial Lands. This was part of 
Wakefield's scheme of educating Parliament, and 
through Parliament the Government and the 
country. He could never hope to educate Parlia- 
ment directly through his own influence by 
becoming a member of it. His crime ^ and its 
punishment rendered his election an impossibility ; ' 
but he saw that Molesworth and BuUer were 

' Abducting ID heircM ; the murine which follamd m* rcToked bj 
•pKial Act of PvliamcDt. 

■ Molaworth did not it one time, it ill cventi, csniider the diScnltJa of 
getting Wikefield into Parliament iruupcnUe. Among the PoicuTOW 
MSS. n 1 draft of an unGniihed tetter from Sir William to Lord Durham 
propoiing to co-operite with him in finding ■ teat tat Wakefield. Molea- 
WDTth often to contribute ;Ciooo to Wikefield'i election expcDio aod to 
eitend to him every kind of penonil lupport. The draft it undated, and 
there ii no further evidence imoag the papera Ihit anything wu actually 
done to promote Wikefield'i candidature. The practical electioneeren of the 
party probably put their veto on the ichcme. Molaworth wai nothing if 
not courageoui ; and in hii ipeech in the HouK of Commona on Colonial 
Landi, 17th June 1839, he refen to " my friend, Mr. Wakefield," and argei 
on the Home the great merit due to him for lettiDg forth ■ identific ayitsn 
of coloniaation. 



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VIII AS A COLONIAL REFORMER 139 

the ablest of the young men in the House, 
as yet unabsorbed by party ambitions, and 
he set to work to educate them. His object 
was to set before the country a scientific 
system of colonisation instead of leaving things to 
the nile of thumb which had relegated emigration 
to haphazard and had weighted it with the awful 
incubus of transportation. This combination of 
insult and injury had already led to the disastrous 
failure of several attempted schemes of colonisation, 
e.g. that of the Swan River Setdement of Western 
Australia in 1828. 

It may not be without interest to some readers 
to observe that nearly all the men who were active 
in promoting Colonial reform at this time were 
Scottish either by birth or education, or by both. 
Wakefield was wholly English by birth. He was 
an East Anglian and was related to Elizabeth Fry. 
But he had received part of his education at the 
Edinburgh High School. Buller and Molesworth 
had both been students of Edinburgh University, 
and Molesworth was besides Scottish on his 
mother's side. Rintoul was wholly Scottish ; so 
was James Mill, and his son, J. S. Mill, was of 
course half Scottish by birth and wholly Scottish 
by the education which his father had given him. 

Molesworth's correspondence from the year 
1833 onwards gives frequent evidence of his study 
of Colonial questions. No sooner was he returned 



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140 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chat. 

as member for Leeds in the General Election 
following the Queen's accession, than on the 
assembling of Parliament he moved for, and 
succeeded in obtaining a Select Committee (24th 
Nov. 1837) "to inquire into the System of 
Transportation, its efficacy as a Punishment, its 
influence on the Moral State of Society in the Penal 
Colonies, and how far it is susceptible of improve- 
ment." The Comnuttee consisted of Sir William 
Molesworth (chairman), Lord John Russell, Sir 
George Grey (not the Colonial statesman, but his 
namesake who was afterwards Home Secretary), 
Mr. Leader, Mr. Hawes, Mr. Ord, Lord Viscount 
Howick, Sir Thomas Fremande, Mr. Frands 
Baring (Thetford), Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Charles 
BuUer, Lord Viscount Ebrington, Sir Charles 
Lenox and Mr. French. It is significant of 
Molesworth's parliamentary position that he, at the 
age of twenty-seven, should have been made chair- 
man of such a Committee. Before its appointment 
he was hard at work at Pcncarrow on the subject of 
transportation, and the grasp of the subject which 
he showed in the speech, in which he moved for 
the appointment of the Committee, did not fail to 
impress the House of Commons. In April 1837 
he had been in correspondence with Lord John 
Russell, who agreed to the appointment of the 
Committee and in consultation with Molesworth 
drew up a proposed list of its members. A letter 



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Tin THE TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE 141 
from Lord John, dated Wilton Crescent, 5th April 
1837, permits Molesworth to quote him as having 
said that if allowed to continue, transportation 
would create "the most depraved community that 
ever existed in the world." The actual appoint- 
ment of the Committee was postponed in con- 
sequence of the death of William IV. and the 
ensuing dissolution of Parliament. No one 
defends transportation now ; but it is instructive 
to find what years of effort were needed, even after 
it had been fully proved to have every defect which 
can characterise a penal system, before it was 
finally abolished. Sir William Molesworth's Com- 
mittee sat in 1837-38 ; the evidence given before 
it revealed a state of things almost too hideous for 
publication ; and yet thirty years were allowed to 
pass before " the accursed thing," as Wakefield 
called it, was done away with altogether. The 
date generally given of the abolition of transporta- 
tion is 1853, but it was continued to Western 
Austraha till 1867, twelve years after Sir William 
Molesworth's death and thirty years after the 
appointment of his Committee. 

Lord Howick, afterwards Lord Grey, and Sir 
George Grey were the chief advocates of trans- 
portation on the Committee, and they had a 
sufficient backing to inast upon the insertion of 
clauses in the Report, advocating, in lieu of the 
consignment system, the establishment of peniten- 



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142 SIR WILUAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

tiaries in Australia for the reception of British-bom 
convicts. From these clauses Sir William signified 
his dissent. The Report as a whole, with the excep- 
tion just notified, was his work and recommended 
the immediate abolition of transportation. In the 
Rev. John Clay's memoir of his father, the reader 
may gather something of what transportation 
meant early in the nineteenth century and the 
close of the eighteenth. In 1799, of 300 convicts 
shipped in one vessel, The Hillshorough, 101 died 
of gaol fever on the voyage. In 1 830 the horrors 
of the passage are thus referred to : " Starvation, 
filth and overcrowding rendered the middle passage 
of the convict ship as horrible as that of a slave 
ship." ' Referring to Molesworth's Committee, 
Mr. Clay says ; " Probably no volume was ever 
published in England of which the contents were 
so loathsome as the appendix to that Committee's 
Report." The horrible condition of the trans- 
portation colonies checked emigration. The free 
labourer naturally objected to join a community 
lai^ely composed of criminals who had been 
bestialised by the degrading conditions of the 
punishment to which they had been subjected. 
Mr. Clay says: "The reconvicted felons who 
worked in chain gangs or were shot into Norfolk 
Island and other cesspools of the colony were, in 
the worst sense of the word, beasts. Aitc^ether 

1 BriiiiJi Ctlamal P<Jief, by Hugh E. Egerton, p. jSI. 



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nn THE TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE 1+3 

it may be doubted whether in any community 
that ever existed the bestial and devilish elements 
of humanity were ever so fearfully developed as in 
the transportation colonies. One people there 
once was which might have vied with our Aus- 
tralian pr(^eny, and that people God expunged 
from the earth with fire and brimstone." ^ 

Molesworth highly valued the support which 
had been given to the opponents of transporta- 
tion by Dr. Whately, Archbishop of" Dublin. In 
1838 he addressed to his constituents in Leeds a 
pamphlet which reproduces the Report of the 
Select Committee on Transportation ; and to this 
he added a very powerful letter written on the 
subject by the Archbishop of Dublin. In the 
dedication of the pamphlet to the inhabitants of 
Leeds, Sir William is compelled again to refer to 
the ill -health which had prevented him, during 
the session of 1838, from taking so active a part 
as he could have wished in the business of the 
House of Commons. The Report of the Com- 
mittee, chiefly written by himself, will, he hopes, 
incline his constituents to believe that he had not 
been entirely idle. He dedicates the reproduction 
of the Report to his constituents for two reasons : — 

First, that you may learn how inefficient, cruel and 
demoralising a punishment transportation is ; how utterly 
it fails in attaining the two grand objects of penal legis- 
> LifiofRn. JJm Oir, p. 1K3. 



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A 



14+ SIR WILUAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

lution, the prevention of crime by means of terror, and 
the reformation of of^ndcfs ; and how deplorable is the 
moral state of the communities to which it has given 
birth. Secondly, that when, by the attentive perusal of 
these pages, you shall be convinced of the truth of these 
statements, you may then be induced to exert yourselves 
to impress upon the Legislature the necessity of imme- 
diately abolishing a punishment in every way so disgrace- 
ful to a civilised and Christian nation : one which, if it 
be permitted to continue, after its character has been 
made known, it may then be doubted, and not without 
some show of reason, whether there is any amount of 
absurdity and wickedness which will not obtain the 
sanction of a Legislature. 

I have published, likewise, a letter laid before the 
Committee, from the Archbishop of Dublin, who first, of 
late years, roused public attention to the nature of the 
punishment of transportation and to its effects on the 
penal colonies, and to whose admirable works on these 
subjects I have been most deeply indebted. . . . 

I need hardly say that I entirely concur in all the 
recommendations of the Committee, except in the single 
one of establishing penitentiaries abroad ; my reasons for 
such disapproval are stated in a note appended to that 
part of the Report in which the proposal is made. — I have 
the honour to be, your obedient, humble servant, 

William Molesworth. 

PsKCARaow, Oet. i, 183S. 

It was shown in the Report that convicts in the 
chain gangs were each night locked up in caravans 
or boxes Irom sunset to sunrise ; these were made 
to hold from twenty to twenty-eight men, but 



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nil THE TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE i+s 
were so small that the whole number could neither 
stand upright, nor sit down, nor lie down at the 
same time. Sir Francis Forbes, who had been 
Chief- Justice of Australia, said in evidence before 
the Committee that the punishment of transporta- 
tion had been carried out in such a way as to 
induce many prisoners to seek death under its 
most appalling aspects rather than continue in the 
horrors which their life brought with it. He said 
he had known "many cases" in which convicts 
had deliberately committed crimes which subjected 
them to execution for the mere purpose of being 
sent to Sydney to be hanged. When asked, 
"What good do you think is produced by so 
horrible a punishment ? " Sir Francis Forbes 
replied " that he thought it did not produce any 
good, and that if it were to be put to himself, he 
should not heatate to prefer death under any form 
in which it could be presented to him, rather 
than such a state of endurance as that of the con- 
vict at Norfolk Island." Judge Burton, who also 
gave evidence, was so moved by the horrors which 
he revealed to the Committee that he could not 
restrain his tears. A convict who had been 
brought before this judge had said, "Let a man 
be what he will when he comes here, he is soon as 
bad as the rest ; a man's heart is taken from him 
and there is given to him the heart of a beast." 
Dr. Ullathornc, who subsequently became Roman 



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146 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH ch*p. 

Catholic Bishop of Birmingham, spent several 
years of his early life in Australia, and was Vicar- 
General of New South Wales. He gave evidence 
before the Committee in reference to events 
following a mutiny among the convicts, which had 
taken place in 1834 ; in the struggle to which the 
mutiny gave rise, nine convicts had been killed ; 
twenty-nine were subsequently convicted for the 
capital offence, and thirteen were executed. It 
was Dr. Ullathorne's duty to attend upon the con- 
demned men and to offer them the consolations 
of religion. His story is best told in his own 
words: — 

On my arrival at Norfolk Island, I immediately 
proceeded, although it was late at night, to the gaol, the 
commandant having intimated to me that only five days 
could be allowed for preparation, and he furnished me 
with a list of the thirteen who were to die, the rest having 
been reprieved. I proceeded therefore to the gaol, and 
upon entering I witnessed a scene such as I never witnessed 
in my life before. The men were originally confined in 
three cells ; they were subsequently assembled together ; 
they were not aware that any of them were reprieved. 
I found, so little had they expected the assistance of a 
clergyman, that when they saw me they at once gave up 
a plot for escape, which they had very ingeniously 
planned, and which might, I think, have succeeded so 
far as their getting into the bush. I said a few words to 
induce them to resignation, and I then stated the names 
of those who were to die ; and it is a remarkable fact 
that at I nuHtioHtd tht nanus efthastmtn who u/ertU dit^ 



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».n THE TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE 147 

they one after another, as their names were preneunced^ 
dropped an their knett and thanked God that they were to bt 
deUveredJrom that horrible place, whilst the ethers remained 
standing mute. It was the most horrible scene I ever 
witnessed. Those who were condemned to death 
appeared to be rejoiced. It had been a very common 
thing with us to find prisoners on their way to the 
scaffold thanking God that they were not going to 
Norfolk Island. 

ArchlMshop Whately's letter is a powerful 
indictment, not merely of the abuses of the system 
of transportation, but of its essential and inherent 
evils. The vast disproportion between the sexes, 
the female convicts being in the proportion of one 
in ten, had led to evils obvious to the most limited 
intelligence. It had been attempted, under the 
auspices of the Colonial Secretary, Lord Glenelg, 
to remedy these evils ; and he had made a grant 
of money to a phiianthropical society, which under- 
took, in consideration of the grant, to send out a 
considerable number of young women to the 
convict settlements. It is hardly surpri^ng that 
the women selected were of a class which good 
people living in London were most pleased to be rid 
of ; but it is also not surprising that their arrival 
did not sensibly ameliorate the concUtion of ignorant 
and brutal profligacy which existed in the convict 
settlements. Of course hard things were said and 
thought of the London philanthropists. But what 



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148 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH cmap. 

choice was presented to them ? They had to send 
out either disreputable women, or women of good 
character. It appears that being severely criticised 
for doing the first they proceeded to do the second. 
Archbishop Whately's comment is unanswerable : — 

To remedy some of the slioclcing effects resulting 
irom the disfvoportion of the sexes, shiploads of young 
women, with certificates of good character, have been 
sent out with the view to purify the character of the 
Colonial community. To pour, &om time to time, 
portions of sound wine into a cask full of vinegar, in 
hopes of converting the vinegar back into wine, would 
have been as rational and as successful a scheme. The 
result has been as might have been expected, that the 
new-comers, instead of disinfecting this moral lazar-house, 
for the most part become as deeply infected as the rest. 

This letter of Whately's is like blow after blow 
from a sledge-hammer upon a rotten erection : it 
is not merely destroyed but reduced to pulp. And 
yet what years of do^ed won't were needed to 
secure the complete abolition of a system which 
necessarily involved such appalling evils. As 
Molesworth more than once stud in his reiterated 
speeches and articles on transportation, " Among 
the great evils of having once adopted a bad 
system is the difficulty which attends the getting rid 
of it." One difficulty arose from the (^position 
of the vested interests involved. One of the chief 
reqiurements for the development of the natural 



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viii THE TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE 149 
resources of the Coloiues was labour. The 
convicts to a certain extent supplied this want. 
Employers of labour in the Colonies therefore 
supported the continuance of transportadon. An- 
other difficulty was to get the public at home to 
fiice the facts. They were so incredibly horrible 
that people refused to believe them : thrir very 
enormity was therefore their protection. All 
honour to the intrepid men who insisted that 
England should not choose but hear. 

The members of the Committee favourable to 
transportation endeavoured in vain to ehcit from 
the witnesses expressions of opinion or statements 
of fact in support of it. It had every feature 
which a penal system should not have : the punish- 
ment was uncertain, because under the consignment 
system it varied with the character of the consignee ; 
some consignees were savage and brutal, others 
were gentle and humane. By the consignment 
system, therefore, the law relegated the punishment 
of ol^nders to the judgment of private individuals. 
The most signal failure of transportation was the 
degrading influence it had on the criminals them- 
selves. The devilish cruelty of some of the time- 
expred convicts to helpless natives is recounted in 
the gloomy pages of the literature bearing on the 
sul^ect, but is too ghastly for repetition. The 
brutalising influences of transportation were con- 
stantly accumulating. To men degraded to the 



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I so SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chaf. 

position of brutes only brutal punishments could 
appeal. In one convict settlement, 247 men were 
flowed in one month in 1833, 9784 lashes being 
inflicted. These floggings were " as severe a 
punishment as could be inflicted on man." lo 
a town of 90,000 inhabitants the annual average 
number of hangings amounted to 132. It is no 
wonder that we find the opponents of transporta- 
tion constantly referring to its demoraliang 
influences on those who had to carry it ouL 
It was in fact twice cursed — cursing those who 
inflicted and those who endured it. 

Transportation was costly in money to the 
mother country : it retarded the industrial de- 
velopment of the Qilonies affected, by checking 
the natural flow of emigrants of good character. 
Notwithstanding such economic advantage as was 
involved by increasing the supply of labour in 
a newly settled country, the general feeling of 
each colony was strongly opposed to transporta- 
tion ; and it was universally recognised that the 
system could not be continued if the Colonies 
obtuned self-government. 

One of the first acts of the United States after 
the Declaration of Independence had been to 
decline any longer to be made a depoutory of 
British convicts. Sir Geor^ Grey, who had been 
a defender of transportation in Molesworth's 
Committee of 1837, endeavoured in 1848, when 



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nn THE TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE 151 

he was Home Secretaty, to make the Cape a 
convict settlement ; but the resistance of the Cape 
colonists amounted to a threat of rebellion, and 
the attempt was abandoned. The resentment of 
the Colonies selected as convict stations gave great 
weight to their d^ms to self-government, the 
constaiit urging of which became the chief work 
of Sir William Molesworth's life. The moral 
injury inflicted on the Colonies which were made 
the dumping-grounds for British crime, was only one 
example out of many which, to quote Sir William's 
vehement words in the House of Commons 
(speech on the state of the Colonies, 6th March 
1S38), "illustrated the imbecile and mischievous 
administration of their affairs by the Colonial 
Office." Lord Glenelg was Secretary for War 
and the Colonies at the time when Sir William 
Molesworth's Committee on Transportation was 
sitting : he was neither a member of it, nor did he 
render it any as^stance. He was, according to the 
evidence of both friend and foe, an extremely re- 
ligious man ; an official member of the Church Mts- 
^onary Society and an evangelical philanthropist. 
But it was not he who originated the inquiry made 
by the Committee, or who appealed to the moral 
sense of the nation to put a stop to the horrors 
associated with transportation. Molesworth, and 
those who acted with him, proceeded exactiy as if 
there had been no such department as the Colonial 



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IS2 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH cii>*. 

Office and no such Minister as the Colonial 
Secretary, for the simple reason that Lord 
Glcnelg's method of administration was "doing 
nothing reduced to a system." Even after the 
Report of the Committee had been cUstributed 
to both Houses of Parliament, there was no 
ugn that Lord Glenelg or his department 
had any knowledge of the facts which it had 
brought to light. Whatever Lord Glenelg's 
private virtues may have been, he earned, and will 
probably always retain, the reputation of having 
been the worst Colonial Secretary of the nineteenth 
century. The horrors of transportation found no 
enemy in him, and he set a stolid oppo^tion 
against eiForts to promote colonisation. Whately 
and Ullathorne saved the reputation of the two 
great Churches mth which they were associated 
from the charge of indifllerence to the cause of 
humanity and justice, but the chief credit of 
grappling with the monstrous evils of transporta- 
tion must always be given to Wakefield, the 
ex-prisoner, and to Molesworth, at whom his 
contemporaries threw the epithets of " infidel *' and 
" unbeliever." William Wilberforce once said 
that he would rather present himself before the 
throne of Heaven with Hannah More's Shepherd 
of Salisbury Plain in his hand than with Peveril of 
the Peak. If his words may be quoted mth a 
difference, there are many who will be disposed to 



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nil THE TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE 153 

say that they would rather present themselves 
before the throne of Heaven with the Report of 
the Transportation Committee than the whole of 
the Church Missionary Soaety's literature in one 
volume. 

Wakefield with his sanguine temperament wrote 
to Molcsworth on receiving a copy of the Report 
of the Transportation Committee that the "un- 
clean thing" had got its death-warrant. In a 
sense it is true that the Report was the death- 
warrant of transportation. But the thing took a 
great deal of killing, and, as already observed, 
Molesworth had been many years in his grave 
before its life was finally extinct. While Moles- 
worth lived he was unwearied in his attacks upon 
it. The last time he brought the subject before 
the House of Commons was on 20th May 1851, 
when he moved an address to the Queen to dis- 
continue transportation to Van Diemen's Land. 
The House was counted out. 



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J 



CHAPTER IX 

THE SOUTH AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND 
ASSOCIATIONS 

When Sir William Mclcsworth told his con- 
stituents at Leeds that he would only promise 
to support Lord Meltxiurne's Administration when 
to the best of his judgment they were right, 
he merely expressed the general prindples which 
habitually governed his conduct. No one was a 
more thorough Protestant than he in his defence 
of the right of p-ivate judgment. He was in 
most things a Benthamite ; but he followed 
Bcntham only when to the best of his judgment 
the philosopher was right. In the matter of the 
relation of the Colonies to the mother country 
he entirely repudiated Bentham's teaching, which 
was identical with what was afterwards known 
as the doctrine of the Manchester School. Ben- 
tham's pamphlet, Emancipate your Colonies, ad- 
vocated the complete separation of the Colonies 



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cH*p.« COLONISING ASSOCIATIONS 155 

from the mother country. Place, and the m^n 
body of the Radicals of the first third of the 
nineteenth century, accepted this view, and it was 
adopted a little later as an axiom by the 
Manchester School. Cobden gave it expression 
in its crudest form when he said, referring to the 
Colonies and to the Army and Navy, " John Bull 
has for the next fifty years the task set him of 
cleaning his house from this stuff." ' For a time 
this view, so far as it referred to the Colonies, swept 
almost everything before it. In 1852 Mr. 
Disraeli, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, wrote 
to the Foreign Secretary, "These wretched Colonies 
will all be independent in a few years, and are 
a millstone round our necks." One of Mr. 
Nassau Senior's conversations records how Bright, 
in 1856, expressed his strong disapproval of the 
fortification of Malta and Gibraltar, and said they 
ought to be given up. Lord Aberdeen, at whose 
house the conversation took place, replied, " Malta 
we cannot do without, but I wish we were well 
rid of Gbraltar." Lord Aberdeen's brother. 
Admiral Gordon, who was sitting by (John Bull 
not having cleansed his house of the Navy), 
looked up from his paper and s^d, ** If you had 
seen the gut of Gibraltar, as I have seen it, 
absolutely swarming with privateers, you would 
wish to keep Gibraltar. Without it our trade 

> Emfri Mtgaaat, TAtauj igai. 



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IS6 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chaf. 

might be almost excluded from the Mediter- 
ranean." Lord Aberdeen replied, "It is not a 
practical question, for no Minister could surrender 
it, but we pay heavily in peace for its services in 
war." ' 

Those who were bom in the first half of the 
last century will well remember when the tone 
which inspired this conversation minus Admiral 
Gordon's contribution to it was all but universal ; 
the expression most in vogue about the Colonies 
was, that it could not be long before they " cut 
the punter," and the sooner it was accomplished 
the better. 

It was the sincere conviction of the Manchester 
Schcxjl that the desirability of the separation of 
the Colonies from the mother country was the 
lesson which England ought to have learned 
from the American War of Independence. But 
it was not thus that Molesworth and the school 
of Colonial Reformers of which he was a member, 
interpreted that great event. They never ceased 
to regret the separation of the United States 
from the mother country ; they believed it to 
have been the inevitable punishment following 
bad government, and that the true lesson to be 
learned from it was to adopt a wholly different 
system under which the Colonies could be content 
as constituent members of the British Empire. 

' htaief Mamriti, by Mn. Simp*oii| p. 149. 



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IX COLONISING ASSOCIATIONS 1 57 

As a means to this end they constantly urged 
upon Parliament and the country the advisability 
of extending to the Colonies, in all suitable cases, 
and as quickly as possible, self-government on 
democratic lines, without severing the connection 
with the mother country. It is Molcsworth's 
supreme title to distinction, that he adopted this 
view, and made it the chief object of tus parlia- 
mentary and public life to educate the country 
to share it and see its importance. Wakefield, 
John Mill, Rintoul of the Spectator, and Colonel 
Torrens were the most vigorous representatives 
of this school of Colonial Reformers out of 
Parliament. It fell to Molesworth and Buller 
to represent it inside the House of Commons.* 
As Raleigh deserves to be remembered as the 
founder of the Colonial Empire of Great Britain, 
so these men must be ever remembered as its 
" liberators and regenerators." 

At the time when they first came upon the 

> Ai in ciainpte of (hi tone of Molaworth'i TJcw* on the Coloiie*, i 
few lentaicc* m*y be quoted from hu Home of CommoM ipcech of Clli 
Much iS}t. Me lUuda to tfae opiniont of thoae who think that the bcit 
thing ■ mother country cui do with colonic! it to get rid of them, and 
"From thii Kntimcnt, natwithitvidin| my reipect fur lomc 
tiin it, I ventore to diiigrcc iltogcthcr." He Chen refen to the 
lia and to the United Sutei, u well u to lodia ud 
the then En&nt colonic* of ADitralla, ud rcjoicea in the fact that vut rcgioni 
in diitant part* of the world were in coorae of Ixiog reclaimed, cultivated, and 
inbalMted by moi and women of our own rare, and adda : " Sir, for my part, 1 
can tee no nccenary fn\ bnt do ace vait and incTitable good in the pooeaaion 
of colaniet." 



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ijS SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

scene of practical pditics, it would be difficult to 
express, and impossible to exaggerate, the hatred 
felt by the Colonies to the Home Government, 
especially to the Colonial Office. In one case, that 
of Canada, this hatred was expressed at first by 
veiled, and in 1837 by open rebellion. The duty 
of Molesworth and his coadjutors was to exert all 
their oratorical and literary capacity in persuading 
the British public that the Colonies were worth 
retaining. That the Colonies were valuable as 
markets for our commerce, as fields for the 
emigration of our surplus population, that a well- 
ordered and contented Colonial Empire would 
" flourish and become of incalculable utility to this 
country," formed the text of many a speech and 
article. In 1835 it was a new idea that freedom 
and empire could be combined, and Molesworth 
frequently found himself misunderstood when 
he said that a free Colonial Empire would be the 
only one worth boasting of. His contention that 
each colony, as quickly as pos^ble after reach- 
ing a cert^n stage of development as regards 
population and settled institutions, should be 
entrusted with self-government, was regarded 
as one of the crazes of an able but wayward 
politician. Mrs. Austin, writing in March 1838 
from Malta to Mrs. Senior, confesses herself thor- 
oughly puzzled by the Radical attacks on Colonial 
administration. 



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IX COLONISING ASSOCUTIONS 159 

I cannot im^ine [she wrttea] what Moleswortb can 
mean by his motion about Lord Glenelg [Secretary of 
State for War and the Colonics]. Is it to please Lord 
Brougham ? At this distance it looks like madness — 
particularly to us> 

Even Roebuck, who had many opporttuiities of 
knomng better, failed to understand what his 
fiiend was driving at, and wrote to his wife : 

Moleswortb has just started a crotchet, the strangest 
possible, that the Crown cannot form a Colonial Govern- 
ment without representative institutions.' 

Of course this does not really represent what 
Moleswortb said or thought, but it illustrates his 
difficulty in getting his aims understood. To 
attempt to establish free representative institutions 
in the Colonies was stigmatised in the Colonial 
Office itself as an attack upon the sovereignty of 
Great Britain. The party of Colonial Reformers 
had to fight their way through every kind of 
obstacle, including neglect and misrepresentation. 
Even as late as 1851, the battle was not won ; and 
the present Lord Thring, then Mr. Henry Thring, 
wrote a pamphlet which was published by the 
Sodety for the Reform of Colonial Government, 
entitled "The Supremacy of Great Britain not 
inconsistent with the Self- Government of the 
Colonies." 

1 TiriGtmrlimit/EiigliikBiimBi. * Lttitr't Lffi ^ Rtdti. i' . 



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i6o SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

The Colonial Office was dominated from 1834 
for more than ten years by the permanent Under- 
Secretary, Sir James Stephen, an able and con- 
scientious man of the highest character and 
indefatigable industry. His predominance in the 
office earned him the names, according to Sir 
Henry Taylor, of King Stephen and Mr. Over- 
Secretary Stephen. He was closely connected with 
the Clapham Sect and the Church Missionary 
Society ; he was a very strict Sabbatarian and a 
powerful opponent of slavery. His son records 
that he never knew him do a stroke of work on 
Sunday except once when he worked continuously 
for forty-eight hours from Saturday to Monday 
drafting the bill, which afterwards became law, 
for the abolition of slavery.^ Sir James Stephen 
looked with no friendly eye on the various 
schemes for promoting emigration and ccdonisa- 
tion, because he wished to protect the aboriginal* 
races of New Zealand and Australia from 
white men's diseases and white men's sins. 
He desired men to know of European civilisation 
only through contact with missionaries and their 
agents. Mr. Charles Grant, afterwards Lord 
Glenclg, identified himself with these views more 
completely perhaps than any other Colonial 
Secretary ; but for many years successive Secretaries 
of State — and Molesworth compluns that there had 

• NmUKMl Dictimary ef Bitp-^kf, irt, " Stephen, Sit Juna." 



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IX COLONISING ASSOCIATIONS i6i 

been six in nine years — did little more than reflect 
and repeat Sir James Stephen's views on Colonial 
qiUestions. 

These, then, were the ant^onists : on the one 
side, Wakefield, Buller, Molesworth, etc., advocat- 
ing with the fervour of a religious propaganda 
systematic colonisation and the extension of free v' 
government and every other adjunct of civilised 
life which could help to make Colonial life 
attractive ; on the other, Sir James Stephen, with 
the Colonial Oflice and the Church Missionary 
Society behind him, doing everything in his power 
to stop and thwart the schemes put forward by 
the colonisers. 

Wakefield's previous history, and Molesworth's 
reputation as a free-thinker in religion, doubtless 
had their efiect in sharpening the edge of Sir 
James Stephen's opposition. One Secretary of 
State for the Colonies told a deputation from the 
Colonial Society that the Government wished to 
discourage emigration. Another objected to give 
any encom^ement to the formation of a self- 
governing community on the ground that " it was 
proposed to erect within the British monarchy a 
Government purely republican."' Molesworth 
and Buller retaliated by constant attacks upon the 
Colonial Oflice and the Secretary of State, in speeches 
in the House of Commons and in articles and 

1 Dr. Garnett'i Lift ffWai^iU, p. 97. 



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i6i SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH ch«. 

pamphlets. Buller referred to the failure to found 
a colony in West Australia, and said it was due to 
the Colonial Office having overlaid the infant at its 
birth. Stephen was, no doubt, the official aimed at 
in Buller's savage sketch of" Mr. Mother Country " 
in his book on Responsible Government for the 
Colonies. When Wakefield and his friends were 
organising the New Zealand Company, which 
eventually secured New Zealand as a British 
colony, Buller wrote to Molesworth that though 
he (Buller) had shown himself "the first diplo- 
matist of this or any other age, Talleyrand him- 
self could not have reconciled Stephen to the New 
Zealand Company." The despatching by the 
Company of ships laden with emigrants to New 
Zealand in 1839 forced the hand of the Colonial 
Office and made it necessary for the Government 
to give the emigrants the protection of the mother 
country, 
-*• The South Australia Association was founded 
in 1834 ; the New Zealand Association in 1837 ; 
of both Molesworth was a director and active 
supporter in the pecuniary as well as in every 
other sense of the word. At a critical moment in 
the history of the battle between the Colonisers and 
the Home Government, the Duke of Wellington 
came to the assistance of the former. His waght 
in the House of Lords turned the scale in &vour 
of the Bill for the colonising of South Australia. 



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IX COLONISING ASSOCIATIONS 163 

There is a sort of Irish flavour in the fact that the 
great Duke's services to South Australia wwe 
commemorated by calling the chief town in New 
Zealand by his name. Wakefield and his friends 
wished the name to be given to the capital of South 
Australia ; but " Adelaide " won the day, and 
Wellington's name was held in reserve for the next 
great colonising scheme. 

Molesworth's pecuniary responsibility in regard 
to South Australia is referred to in a note in 
the last chapter. I have not been able to dis- 
cover what the total capital of the South Australian 
Association was ; the capital of the New Zealand 
Association, at the time of its foundation, is stated 
by Sir William Molesworth to have been fji 50,000.^ 

A street in Wellington, New Zealand, called 
Molesworth Street, commemorates Sir William 
Molesworth's connection with the foundation of 
the colony. 

Those who would follow the history of the 
New Zealand and South Australia Associations in 
detail arc referred to the interesting account of 
them which is to be found in Dr. Garnett's Life 
of Wakefield, and in Mr. Hugh Egerton's History of 
British Colonial PoHcy. It is sufficient here to say 
that the founding of the two colonies was due to 
the public spirit of these private associations, and 
that guided by the sdentific principles laid down 

* Hook of Commoiu (pcccli on Colonial Luub, i7tli June 1839. 



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i64 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chaf. 

by Wakefield, the mistakes were avoided which 
had led to disaster and disappointment in other 
colonial enterprises. The Government had by this 
time learnt by bitter experience the evil con- 
sequences of making huge grants of land, iree of 
cost, to individual emigrants, as tending to isolation 
when the needs of the infant community rendered 
the cOH3peration of labour most essential.* They 
had already put a fixed price of 5s. an acre on land 
in New South Wales early in the thirties ; but 
though this conceded the principle contended for 
by Wakefield, he and his associates were by no means 
satisfied with its application, and the creation of the 
South Australian Association, and the subsequent 
founding of the colony of South Australia, was the 
immediate result of Wakefield's determination to 
have free scope for the apphcation of his principles. 
It was determined from the outset that neither of 
the colonies was to be used as a convict settlement ; 
the supply of labour was to be promoted by 
assisted emigration, the funds for which were 
provided by the sale of land ; capital was raised by 
the company, and applied in developing the natural 
resources of the new colonies. Molesworth's 
assistance to these associations in and out of 
Parliament was invaluable ; he spared neither time, 

^ Men had died of itirTition in the midit of tbe vut arei of Und frrciy 
grantcii to them, for lack of the labour aad capiul needed to nuke the earth 



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ix COLONISING ASSOCIATIONS 165 

labour, nor his purse in promoting them, and in 
the case of New Zealand he gave more than time, 
labour, or money, for he encouraged the departure 
to the newly founded colony of his dearly loved 
youngest brother, Francis, to whom reference has 
already been several times made in these pages. 
The first ship, named The Tory, despatched by the 
association with emigrants for New Zealand suled 
from Plymouth on 5th May 1839. Francis 
Molesworth was not in her. He did not attain 
his majority till the 19th of May of the same year. 
The Pcocarrow manuscripts contain an entry, not 
in Sir William's writing, probably in that of his 
mother, eloquent in its studied reserve, about the 
departure of this Benjamin of the family. 

Francis, 19th Msiy 1839, birthday, and twenty-one 
years of age, determined to go to New Zealand. On 
Wednesday,4th September, at eight o'clock in the evening, 
be took his last leave of us for London^ to sail on the 
lotb or nth in Tht Oritntal (or that Island. 

In the following year there is a letter from Sir 
William to Mr. Woollcombe. 

I have been reflecting on the feet that Francis has now 
embarked the whole of his property in New Zealand, 
with some anxiety on his account lest he might fee) 
himself, should his speculations not immediately suc- 
ceed, in want of money to go on with. This would 
put him in a very painful position and he might be 
compelled to sacrihce property. After mature delibcra- 



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i66 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

tion I think it would be kind and wise to inform 
him that if be should really feci himself in difficulty, I 
will honour his bilb (due notice being given me) to a 
certain amount, say j^zooo, he engaging himself to pay 
lair Colonial interest. . . . You will readily undcntand 
my feelings and wishes, and therefore if you think the 
course I propose wise, I would be obliged to you to 
write him a letter of business to that ef^t. 

Many high hopes and expectations went with 
Francis Molcsworth to his new home. Mrs. 
Grote wrote to Miss Molcsworth (now Mrs. 
Ford) :— 

Thanks for the news of your dear Francis, in which we 
both feel interested. He has much to contend with, like 
other colonists looking to the parent country for security 
against aggression or dispossession as well as many 
secondary benefits, and being kept in a feverish state 
between hope and despair, owing to the absorption in 
home aflairs here, which leaves the heads of Government 
little opportunity for attending to our hardy and brave 
distant settlers* real interests. I admire Francis's 
indomitaUe perseverance ; he really resembles the old 
settlers of New England, whom nothing disheartened. 
He must thrive, and before he is thirty-five will be a mature 
character, such as is needed to govern and consolidate a 
new society. Who knows but that he may sway the 
sceptre somewhere in those distant climes yet ? 

The fantastic prc^nostication of the last words 
illustrates the romance which was then associated 
with Colonial undertakings. In a very different 



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IX COLONISING ASSOCIATIONS 167 

sprit, but one which is also flushed by a light that 
never was on sea or land, Charles Austin wrote to 
Sir William about the departure of Frands. 

I hope and intend to pay you a visit at Pcncarrow. 
I could have gone down with Francis when he left 
London the other Tuesday, and put him off with an 
excuse, the truth being that I would not run the risk of 
interfering with his last days. Tell him he has a noble 
spirit, that he is doing what he ought to do, and that I 
pray God he will succeed. I don't know why these 
adventures should be so attractive ; but I feel like you — I 
wish I were going myself. New sky, new land, new 
men, new life, without kings, lords, and priests, and the 
rest of hell. 

The new sky, new land, new men, and new life 
to which Francis was bound probably justified the 
saying about French forms of government, Plus 
cela change, plus c'est la meme chose. But Francis 
Molesworth played an honourable and laborious 
part as a pioneer colonist. He died in England in 
1846, his death being the result of an accident 
which took place in New Zealand while he was 
engaged in felling a tree. He was gready esteemed 
and beloved by his fellow-colonists as well as by 
his family and by his English friends. The New 
Zealand Journal, commenting on his death at the 
time, spoke of the high tone and of the spirit of 
enterprise which he infused among the earliest 
settlers in the ndghbourhood of Wellington, who 



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i68 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

were stimulated by his example and aided by his 
advice. The writer of the obituary notice said of 
him : — 

Long before others had brought themselves to face 
the difficulties of a new country, Mr. Molesworth had 
unfolded the capabilities of his adopted home by showing 
what it would produce, thus urging on others, who 
speedily followed his example. He was the first culti- 
vator in New Zealand, and the remembrance of his 
perseverance when less enterprising minds were in a 
state of despondency will long be remembered by all 
who knew him. In the qualities of energy, utter 
defiance of hardship, disregard of personal comfort, and 
devotion to the interests of the colony he will not easily 
be surpassed. — Nnu Ztaland JntrnaL, 15th August 1846. 

An obelisk was placed to his memory on a 
rock called Barrett's Reef, near Wellington, and 
his portrait hangs among those of the pioneers 
of New Zealand colonisation in one of the 
Government buildings at Wellington. The 
brave and beautiful young life may to-day be 
almost forgotten, but none the less it is men 
such as these which have made, by the actual 
sweat of their brow and labour of their hands, 
the greatness of England's Colonial Empire. 
Charles Austin refers, in the letter just quoted, to 
Sir William Molesworth having felt when his 
brother was going to New Zealand, the powerfid 
attraction of these Colonial enterprises. But there 



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IX COLONISING ASSOCIATIONS 169 

never was a man less fitted, on the whole, to be a 
Colonial pioneer. His delicate health was in itself 
an insuperable bar, and he was in all things 
essentially the product of a finished civilisation, 
exqut^te in di^s, diunty and fasticUous in habits, 
dependent for happiness on books and social inter- 
course with congenial spirits. The only tastes 
which would haye found a wider scope in Colonial 
life than at home were his pas^on for trees and 
tree-planting, and his interest in dogs and horses. 
Nevertheless, Wakefield, the enthusiast, who saw 
everything through colonisation spectacles, seriously 
urged on Sir William to lead a Colonial party in 
person. Dr. Garnett speaks of Wakefield's irresist- 
ible powers of persuasion. *' He was a master in 
the art of persuading. He seldom failed if he 
could get his victim into conversation." If he 
^ed in this instance, it was perhaps because he 
trusted to his pen instead of his tongue. 

Bd. St. BuiLDiNCS, 
Januarj 4, 1840. 

My dear Molbsworth — I dined at Leader's yester- 
day with a party of keen politicians, . . . and as I re- 
turned with my brother we remarked that no subject 
of English politics had been mentioned except that 
Charles Austin asked Leader, in a faint, half-derisive 
tone, whether he intended to go to the "grand demon- 
stration festival at Leeds," 

This set me a-thinking about you in a train which 



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170 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

is just touched in another letter going with this, which 
was written yesterday, and here's the result, 

I guess from your talking of the Governorship of New 
South Wales that you are as sick as other "Liberals" 
of Home politics, and, unlike them, indisposed to the 
sloth and usclessness to which Liberals arc condemned 
by the state and prospect of public affairs here. If so, 
why should you not strike out some action to perfcMin, 
in which your political knowledge might be turned to 
account f Why not do something remarkable before 
you die i and so forth. Then, is the (I think) attainable 
object of the Governorship of New South Wales worth 
pursuing } I think, and you will think, not, unless you 
could get a kind of Durham-Canada power, and be siure 
of the support of the Government at home in a thorough- 
going course. Without both these conditions the 
Governorship of New South Wales would only bring 
you disappointment and vexation, and of neither a there, 
I think, any chance. But then is there no career in 
which you could draw on your own fund of self-reliance, 
and be a maker of events without hindrance from 
ignorance or cowardice ? I think there is — that of 
founding a colony in person. Nor is this a mere specu- 
lation, for the idea has been put into my head, though 
partly by the contemplation of your going to waste and 
uselcssncss here, still partly by the &ct that the formation 
of a new colony in New Zealand has been projected by 
men who would rejoice to have you as their leader. 
Among them is your old friend, E. Duppa, and my 
brother Arthur. The latter I consider eminently 
(qualified for lagging at such a work, having the whole 
subject at his fingers' ends, with confirmed habits of in- 
dustry, order, duty-doing, and with courage and good- 



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IX COLONISING ASSOCIATIONS 171 

temper to boot. Some other persons of the best Icmd 
are thinking of joining in this enterprise. New Zealand 
is the best field, the physical geography of (he country 
pointing out the expediency of forming many separate 
settlements. There you would pknt the settlement of 
Molesworth, leading out some thousands of people, and 
arrange its municipal government. Then as a member 
of the General Coimcil of Government for the Island 
you would give the tone and character to general legisla- 
tion. You would be more than Governor, who is an 
officer dependent on the breath of the office at home, 
and sure to be impeded if he try to do weU ; you would 
in fact get through your influence in the Council that 
legislative power which you have so long desired to wield 
somewhere. But the planting, the formation of society 
with your own hand, is the charm in my estimation ; 
and if I possessed the power which you do of getting a 
great tail to follow me, I would see useless Leeds and 
slothfiil Pencarrow at the devil and do this thing in 
great style. You have the further advantage over me of 
being at a time <^ life when men of spirit want to be 
performing actions ripened by study and thought, but 
not come to the term when reflection on the past natur- 
ally takes the place of action. . . . You might command 
the Company [the New Zealand Association] to every 
sort of co-operation. So many would join you that this 
should be by lar the greatest colonising enterprise of (his 
day or any day. And say you gave seven years to it ; 
then though weeds would grow in the garden at Pen- 
carrow, and somebody else would accomplish nothing zs 
member for Leeds, you would have made your mark 
upon the fece of the world, and for what else is it worth 
while to live when one has got to be thirty ? I would 



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i7> SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

work for your success and renown with all my heart and 
soul i and you know how zealously I can do that for 
another while he is in earnest. 

I am quite serious, and beg for a serious answer. — 
Yours ever truly, E. G. Wakefield. 

Molesworth's reply h not forthcoming, but its 
tenour can be gathered from Wakefield's rejoinder, 
which is here given almost in fvH : — 

Bd. St. Buildings, 
January 8, 1840. 

Mv DEAR MoLEswoRTH — As you desire, I write 
again. Your seven conditions very closely agree with a 
set which, in talking the matter over with my brother, 
we had anticipated as essential to the doing of this thing 
in the best possible way. After further consideration I 
say— 

iGt. The body of the right sort of men is indispensable. 
I know of some, but am confident that almost too many 
will flock to your standard, provided it be properly 
raised. 

2nd. The "large purchase," say j^ 200,000, is just 
what we have talked about. On this point I have no 
doubt, provided the thing be well set about. 

3rd. I had said before your letter arrived that our new 
system of colonising alters the case foi a leading man 
nowadays, and that an outlay or investment of ^10,000 
would be ample. ^^6000 would be enough. Penn spent 
j^50,ooo, but then he did not understand emigration 
fimd, town acres, and the other things which make the 
public provide funds for founding a well-led colony. I 
had said that you would dispose of your stock, saving only 



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ir COLONISING ASSOCIATIONS 173 

3L qualification (;^SOO} in order to be a director. . . . You 
would not spend the j^30oo a year ; and if you laid your 
investment well out in land only, you might grow richer 
a good deal by the undertaking. 

4th. The most suitable place in the islands. By our 
arrangement with Government we could go where we 
pleased at any time and pick land by meaqs of our 
surveyors. In choosing a good place the only difficulty 
is the emiarras de richeises. There are a dozen places — 
such is the nature of the country. 

5th. Not to mention my own stake at Port Nicholson 
(;^iooo, which is much f<»' me), I consider that we are 
all under a strong obligation to abstain from doing any- 
thing that might hurtfiilly aiFect the men who had the 
pluck to go to the Cannibal Lands when all seemed 
uncertainty and risk. But I am satisfied on full reflection 
long ago that the more and greater settlements there are 
in New Zealand, and the sooner th^ become great, the 
better for the Wellington ians.^ 

7tb. I have said already that a few years would suffice 
for this work ; but were I in your place and going, no 
man should know when, or even thai, I intended to 
return. I would go like Penn, who returned more than 
once, I think. 

This being Friday, Rintoul could spare but a short 
time for a talk on the question. We have agreed to go 
over the whole ground on Monday. His first impression 
is that all depends on the manner — that you might do it 
in a manner to damage your position as an Englishman 
— that you might do it in a manner to stand higher 
than ever in the estimation of your countrymen and of 

■ The emkiioD of No. G ii Mr. Wakefield'i, 



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174 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

the world. Here he and I agreed ; and then postponing 
further discussion till Monday, we jumped to the con- 
clusion that in order to keep the manner of going to 
work in your own hands, it is essential that you should 
keep the secret of your project. For instance, it would 
be wretched if any but yourself should tell your con- 
stituents or the public of your intentions. Not a breath 
on the subject should be heard till you yourself blew a 
loud trump of explanation. The announcftnent of your 
purpose should be your own — and should be both an 
invitation to kindred spirits to join you and a legacy to 
the cause of liberty at home. For all this, secrecy is indis- 
pensable. If any jackass could go about saying that you 
thought of colonising in person, I should be glad to cut 
his tongue out. Keep in your own power. The resig- 
nation of your seat at Leeds would be an event ; take 
care to have the conduct of it. As far as I am concerned 
your secret shall be safe. 

Our charter^ is all but ready, and the capital is to be 
greatly increased. We talk of a great Colonial gathering, 
in the shape of a grand dinner to Lord John, to which all 
sorts of Coloniab would be invited. I should like the 
Charter, and the gathering and the announcement of the 
second colony to come all at once as a broadside that 
would shake the public mind, and, with this view, 
wish that you had been coming sooner to town. For 
while you are in suspense, I will endeavour to suspend 
everything else. Would not cold-catching on the road 
do as well for the Leeds meeting as business at home i 
I see such greatness in the prospect of your deciding to 
take this step that I shall fret till you say Yes or No. If 

1 To the New Zealuid Compuy. 



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IX COLONISING ASSOCIATIONS 175 

70U axy Yes wc will make this surpass immeasurably in 
all good qualities everything of the sort that has been 
done in the world before. — Yours ever truly, 

E. G, Wakefield. 

A skilful letter, but it faHcd of its object. It 
was "Wakefield all over to suggest to Molesworth 
that the eclat caused by the public announcement 
of his undertaking to personally conduct a. Colonial 
expedition to New Zealand would enable him to 
get rid of his stock in the New Zealand Company 
with the exception of the £joo which was the 
qualification for being a director. The secrecy, 
too, would have been all in favour of Wakefield's 
scheme, as it would have prevented Molesworth 
from discussing the project with his ^ends. 

Wakefield could charm a bird off* a tree, but it 
was beyond even his powers to persuade Sir William 
Molesworth that he was fitted personally to lead a 
party of pioneer colonists to create a settlement in 
New Zealand. As the French lady said : " When 
one arrives at middle age, even if one does not 
know one's self perfectly, at any rate one begins to 
have one's suspicions." In 1 840 Sir William was 
thirty years old, and he did not misjudge himself so 
grossly as to believe he was fit for the task to which 
Wakefield invited him. He appears to have 
neglected Wakefield's advice to bury the project in 
profound secrecy ; for he both spoke and wrote 



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176 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

very fully to WooUcombe about it, as the foUowing 
letters show ;— 

Pencakkow, Wtdneti»j. 
[Probable date, Januarj 1840.] 
My dear Woollcombe — ^The more I reflect upon 
Wakefield's project the stronger appear the objections to 
it, which we discussed at Plymouth. I have no doubt of 
the success of the colony ; ' but in a personal point of 
view, I don't think the honour gained will be very great 
or sufficient to repay the privations. I do not feel that 
either my health or character qualify mc to be the popular 
leader of an expedition. I do not see what position I 
should hold, or what I should have to do. Penn and 
others expended their fortunes ; the colony was theirs, 
and they were lords and masters. In those days there 
was something wonderful in going to America j now it 
is a trifle to pay a visit to Australia. My chief use would 
be, first, in this country as a great decoy-duck to tempt 
emigrants ; secondly, in the colony as a sort of pigeon 
whom every one will feel he has a right to pluck, fnun 
whom everything will be expected, and whom every one 
will abuse' if anything goes wrong, taking care at the 
same time to attribute all success to their own personal 
exertions. Besides this there is too great an indination 
on the part of Wakefield for stage effects, and too much 
will depend on them to satisfy me j for my feelings are 
revolted by such a course of proceeding. And, lastly, I 
can't put reliance on Wakefield, because he has too many 
projects afloat. This is the summary of my last letter to 
Wakefield in reply to one which I now enclose to you, 
1 He wrote to Mn, Ototc ■ little liter tlun ttiU chat he would not take 
,£6000 for pTDperty in New Zeiluid, for which ■ (hort time bick be had 
giicB oaly £1000. 



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IX COLONISING ASSOCIATIONS 177 

desiring you to return it with Wakefield's lirst letter. I 
told him your project of a company of which I shoidd be 
governor : the only feasible plan, but to which again 
there seem to mc grave personal objections. On the 
whole I think that going Co New Zealand will damage 
my prospects as a public man in this country ; that I am 
steadily rising in public opinion here ; that if I have firm- 
ness to pursue for the next ten years the course which I 
have already pursued, I shall have the opportunity of dis- 
tinguishing myself, and by that time a change probably 
will take place in the aspect of political aiFairs. I feel 
disgusted at present, it is true, but on mature reflection I 
think that feeling is not justified. I should Hke to go to 
New South Wales with powers that the Colonial Office 
won't give ; because that would be to terminate a task I 
bad commenced, and would not seem to change me from 
an Englishman into a colonist, as Wakefield would advise 
me to let it appear, ... I must say in conclusion that 
the obstacles to Wakefield's plan seem to me insurmount- 
able, but I shall wait till I meet him in town to come to 
an absolute decision in the negative. I hope you did as I 
desired and pointed out to him the difficulties when you 
wrote to him. . . . — Yours truly, 

Wm. Molesworth. 

There are further letters from Wakefield, in 
one of which he says that the " peace of Pencarrow," 
to which he has been invited on a visit, would 
enable him to *' abridge, improve, and popularise 
England and America,^ with good elFect." He is 

> Ei^taitdmi Amtrica, by Edward Gibbon Wikefield, WH fint pabUihtd 



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178 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

wild with Charles Austin because it is expected he 
will decline to be a candidate for the representa- 
tion of Manchester. *' What a chance ! the post of 
Leader of the Popular Party, the representation of 
Manchester, succeeding a CatMnet Minister, and 
the whole recess for preparation. By jingo ! it 
would provoke a saint if he refuses," 

Charles Austin did refuse peremptorily, and 
Wakefield could not use him as one of the 
" decoy-ducks " he was constantly searching for. 

It must not be foi^otten that the New Zealand 
Association had been working for many years with 
the aim of obtaining a charter from the Govern- 
ment. Once they had been apparently near 
success, and thought they had secured the support 
of the Government ; but these hopes were doomed 
to disappointment, and the Bill introduced on behalf 
of the Association in 1838 was opposed from the 
Government bench by Lord Howick and Sir 
George Grey and defeated in the House of 
Commons by nearly three to one. The Associa- 
tion then dissolved and re-formed itself as a limited 
liability company under the tide of the New 
Zealand Land Company. This was done to meet 
the wishes of the Government. Subsequently 
to this the negotiations with the Colonial OfHce 
about the granting of a charter to the New 2^3- 
land Land Company were developing favourably. 
The incapable Lord Glenelg had been succeeded 



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IX COLONISING ASSOCIATIONS 179 

in 1839 as Colonial Secretary, first by Lord 
Normanby, then by Lord John Russell. Not- 
withstanding Buller's OfMnion that Talleyrand him- 
self could not have reconciled Sir James Stephen 
to the New Zealand Company, Lord John did not 
prove unamenable to its overtures for friendly 
negotiation. After long pourparlers and long 
waiting the Company at last received from Lord 
John the terms on which he would consent to the 
granting of a charter. Wakefield's talents for 
diplomacy were not inconsiderable. Through his 
management of the Board, though some of the 
terms were unpalatable, Lord John's offer was 
accepted at once and completely. Wakefield 
wrote in the highest spirits to Molesworth : — 

N.Z. HousB, Ottnier z6, 1840. 

My dear Molbsworth — Lest you should prepare 
a speech for the Plymouth dinner which you would not 
be able to make, I tell you the secret of a secret 
committee of the directors who have been negotiating 
with Lord John. 

Instead of abusing the Government you will have to 
praise them. They have not merely conceded what we 
might have gained by continuing the war, but have 
oiFered us all that we could desire. The main points are 
in Lord Elliot's report with this addition, that our 
Company is really to be the agent of the State for 
colonising N. Z. We are to have a charter for 
forty years with an increased capital and great powers. 
The Plymouth Co. is fiilly recognised. It will be 



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I So SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH cbaf. 

called an enormous job, but is really a wise settlement of 
all the questions. We shall have the official announce- 
ment to-morrow, I hope, and a copy shall be sent to you. 
I propose to reach Plymouth on Thursday night, and 
should like to meet you on Friday morning for the 
purpose of ixplaintng our new position. I shall go to the 
big hotel where I dined with you. At present all this is 
a secret and must be kept so till we have the official 
determination of Government. Lord John has behaved 
very well and Stephen excellently. 

I wish you joy of your Leeds letter. It is most 
a propos, and will prove, I think, very elFective. 

I am very glad to think that your spec, in New 
Zealand shares must now turn out very profitable. 

This negotiation has lasted for six weeks, and you 
will now see that I had good reason ibrnot leaving town. 
The satis&ction of the triumph is almost intolerable. 

I think that Lady Motcsworth and Miss Mary are 
entitled as shareholders to be told this good news, more 
especially as they may tell it again at Pencarrow without 
betraying our secret. — Yours ever truly, 

E. G. Wakefield. 

The dinner came off at Devonport, not Ply- 
mouth ; Wakefield was present and told Charles 
BuUer that Molesworth's speech was " like that of 
an angel." 

Financially Sir William had backed the New 
Zealand Company with his accustomed generosity 
where big schemes were in view and long purses 
were required. When the matter of the charter 
was ^ill in suspense, and the capital of the New 



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tx COLONISING ASSOCIATIONS i8i 

Zealand Company was still incompletely subscribed, 
he promoted a plan whereby at the end of six 
montlis the Directors should take up, by equal 
divi^on among them, all the remaining shares. 
There is a fragment of a letter from Sir William 
to Woollcombe explaining this and why he felt 
bound to make himself responsible for taking up 
another j^isoo worth of shares. There is an 
apologetic tone about the letter, as if Woollcombe, 
in his capacity as a^ent, had remonstrated at the 
large sums already involved in the Colonial enter- 
prises of his chief. But when we put together this 
and Wakefield's character, and the " intolerable " 
emotions of triumph from which he was suffering, 
it b not surprising that he describes Molesworth's 
speech at Devonport as " the speech of an angel." 



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CHAPTER X 



While the Wakefield group of Colonial Refonners 
in and out of Parliament were pushing th«r views 
on Colonial questions in a practical manner by 
setting on foot infant communities in New Zealand 
and South Australia, an event happened which 
displayed more than anything else could have done 
the errors of the old Colonial Office methods of 
administration, and indirectly led to a complete 
change in the relations between the mother country 
and the Colonies. This event formed the starting- 
point of the definite assumption by Great Britan 
of the principle that the union could only be 
satisfactorily maintiuned on the basis of Colonial 
self-government, accompanied by a recognition 
of Imperial claims and responsibilities. Canada 
had become a Briti^ colony in 1763. The 
population was then almost wholly French, and 
continued to be governed, after it had become a 
British possession, under the old French law. Thb 



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CHAP.x CANADA 18} 

worked smoothly until the body of English-born 
colonists in Canada became considerable ; when 
this took place, after the manner of their nation, 
they began to desire a representative system of 
government. A House of Representatives was 
then called into existence, elected by 40s. free- 
holders. As Englbh statesmen had then arrived 
at nothing better for the Cslonies than an effort to 
imitate as closely as possible the English con- 
stitution, a Council was also created, answering as 
far as might be to the House of Lords. Members 
of the Council were not subject to election, but 
were nominated by the Crown for life, and in some 
instances the office was made hereditary. The 
French Canadians became alarmed by these changes, 
for they saw that the Council would be entirely 
British by birth and in spirit. In order to meet 
the feeling of French versus English, the colony 
was divided in 179 1 into two parts, Upper and 
Lower Canada ; the dividing line was drawn so as 
to leave Lower Canada almost wholly to the French, 
and Upper Canada to the British settlers. Each 
province had a separate Governor and separate 
assemblies and councils. Fox warned the Govern- 
ment of his day of the dangers of this arrangement, 
but for several years it worked well, and both 
Upper and Lower Canada remsuned for many 
years heartily loyal to Great Britain, fighting 
vigorously on her side in the American War of 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



1 84 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chat. 

1 8 12. After the European peace which followed 
the battle of Waterloo, there was a considerable 
increase in the emigration from Great Britain to 
Canada, but the newcomers did not find either in 
Upper Of Lower Canada a government well suited 
to them. English and Scotch emigrants did not 
take kindly to the old French seigneurial law of 
Lower Canada ; while in Upper Canada they 
found a government of the extreme aristocratic 
church and king type. It was not long before a 
bitter conflict raged between the elected and the 
nominated Chambers. The conflict bore a con- 
siderable resemblance to that in the English re- 
volutionary war in the seventeenth century between 
the Parliament <and the Crown. The elective 
Assembly in both Upper and Lower Canada 
claimed, what the House of Commons has always 
claimed, the power of the purse. They also de- 
manded that the Council should be subject to 
election. The Council strongly opptwed both 
these demands, and carried on the i^ht with the 
representative Chamber by thromng out nearly 
every popular measure which had been passed by 
the elected representatives of the people. The 
quarrel between the two Chambers was aggravated 
in every possible way. In Lower Canada cspcdally 
it represented the deep-seated feuds of race and 
religion. The nominees of the Crown who formed 
the Council were English and Protestant ; the 



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X CANADA 1 85 

members of the Assembly were nearly all French 
and Catholic. Such settlers in Lower Canada who 
were not of French origin were for the most part 
Scottish Presbyterians or EngliA Nonconformists ; 
a sturdy stock, thoroughly imbued with the principle 
that taxation and representation should go tc^ether. 
In one of his speeches on Canada (House of 
Commons, 23rd January i838),Sir William Moles- 
worth p>ointed out that Lord Ripon, when Colonial 
Secretary, had authorised the retention of Colonial 
funds, fMSed by the sale of land, in order to pay 
j^3cxx3 a year to a Church of England Bishop of 
Quebec. The Home Government by this action 
diverted iiinds which should have been at the 
disposal of the colony, to the purpose of subsidising 
a Church to which only about one-fifth even of the 
Protestants of Canada belonged ; this fifth was 
equal to not more than one-twenty-fifth of the 
whole population. In consequence of this and of 
other high-handed acts of oppression, the House 
of Assembly in Lower Canada in 1833 refused to 
pass a civil list for the payment of official salaries. 
Upper Canada followed suit in 1836. Both 
provinces peremptorily demanded the control of 
their own finances, and that the Council (or 
Upper Chamber) should be made elective : this 
the Home Government as peremptorily refused ; 
and on 6th March 1837, Lord John Russell 
brought forward resolutions in the House of 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



1 86 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chat. 

Commons to enable the Governor of Lower Canada 
to dispose of its revenues without the consent of 
the Canadian people. 

Molesworth took part in the debate in opposi- 
tion to Lord John Russell's resolutions. tie 
contended with much force that the powers of the 
House of Assembly in Canada over Canadian 
revenues were founded on statute and also on 
natural justice. He urged that they were funda- 
mentally identical with those of the House of 
Commons over English revenues. 

The noble Lord, by the resolutions in my hands, 
intends to propose in the committee that the Governor 
of Lower Canada should be authorised for the present u> 
appropriate the revenues of that Province without the 
consent of the Representatives of the Canadian people. 
I contend that no arguments can be adduced to Justify 
such an act on the part of the Imperial Parliament, for 
it would be an act of tyranny, consequently the question 
ought not to be entertained. . . , The people of Lower 
Canada complain of certain grievances. The Repre- 
sentatives of the people have adopted the constitutional 
means of refiising to grant supplies till those grievances 
be redressed. The noble Lord proposes that the British 
Legislature should evince a sovereign power, and that 
it should interfere with the control of the House of 
Assembly over the public purse. Has he any rig;ht to 
make such a proposal ? I deny that he has. 

Sir William then adduced the legal grounds on 
which his contention was based, and cited the Acts 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



X CANADA 187 

of Parliament applicable to the subject and con- 
tinued: — 

The attention of a. constitution when done with the 
concurrence of the majority of the people constitutes 
constitutional reform ; when done in opposition to their 
wishes it becomes an act of tyranny. In the ktter case, 
if the people be strong enough they are morally bound 
to have recourse to the right of resistance. The pica of 
the noble Lord must be that the conduct of the House 
of Assembly is bad. I deny that either he or this House 
is constitutionally speaking a judge of that iact. The 
House of Assembly is not responsible to us : it is respon- 
sible to its constituents, and to those constituents only, 
for its conduct. . . . If the noble Lord attempt to carry 
out his resolutions, the question is one that can only be 
Gctded by force. The British Legislature has granted 
to the House of Assembly of Lower Canada sovereignty 
in money matters. That sovereignty the noble Lord 
now wishes to resume. The control of the purse, every 
one knows, constitutes the essence of freedom. The 
Canadians are still free. Will they permit themselves to 
be made slaves by these resolutions P In a simitar cause 
the people of this country worked out a great and glorious 
revolution. They jusdy punished a monarch who had 
dared to tax them without their consent. For a similar 
reason our fellow-cidzens in the United States bid us 
defiance and shook off our yoke. . . . The Saxon will 
permit no one to interfere with his purse ; he will fight 
for it first ; that is the peculiarity of the race. It is 
proper that the people of England should know clearly 
and should distinctly understand that the noble Lord 
proposes to do that in Canada which would make every 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



■ 88 SIR WILUAM MOLESWORTH chat. 

man of English blood a rebel, to prevent which our 
ancestors fought — to prevent which wc would fight if 
necessary. 

Lord John Russell's resolubons were carried 
by an immense majority, 269 tx> 46, and the 
prospect of averting open rebellion in Canada 
became hopeless. Grote, writing about a year 
later (February 1838) to his friend, John Austin, 
who was then in Malta, said : — 

The ai&irs of Canada have turned out most calamitous, 
the discontents in Lower Canada were so bitterly aggra- 
vated by the resolutions [Lord John RusscU'sJ passed by 
the English Parliament last spring, that there has been 
open rebellion, and the Ministry have been driven to 
propose further measures of coercion against that colony 
resisted bysome fifteen Radicals in the House of Commons, 
of whom I was one. 

This letter indicates a iVirther split in the 
Radical party and a political but not a personal 
breach between Molesworth and Grote. The 
"further coercive measures" agiunst Canada, re- 
ferred to by Grote in February 1 838, were contained 
in the Canada Bill, passed in January of the same 
year, suspending the Canadian Constitution and 
appointing Lord Durham to be Lord High Com- 
missioner and Governor-General with extraordin- 
ary powers to deal with the whole condition of 
things in Upper and Lower Canada. In Mrs. 
Grote's letters, published and unpubhshed, she 



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X CANADA 189 

never refers to Lord Durham without some con- 
tumehous epithet attached to his name — *' that 
wayward nobleman " is one of the gentlest of the 
expressions used. Francis Place shared the Grotes' 
view of Durham and wrote ; — 

Lord Durham is a " lost mutton." He had a chance 
[in Canada] such as few men have had, but he was all a 
lord and none a man, and could not talce the high station 
offered to him ... he is defunct as a public man, etc. 

On the other hand, John Mill and Harriet 
Mardneau, among influential persons not in Parlia- 
ment, supported Lord Durham with an intensity 
of conviction which makes their pages glow with 
an indestructible fire even at the present day ; and 
Molesworth was with them, heart and soul, and 
supported Lord Durham and his mission with 
enthusiasm. He made a important speech in 
Parliament on 23rd January 1838, on the second 
reading of the Canada Bill, and for one word 
which he says against that part of the Bill which 
suspended the Constitution of the colony, he 
spraJcs pages in support of the appointment of 
Lord Durham. It was within the bounds of 
possibility at that time, and it was certunly 
ardently hoped by a section of the Radical party, 
that the leader and man of action they had looked 
for so long in vain would be found in the person 
of Lord Durham. Mill and others of the Radicals 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



190 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chaf. 

constantly use the expression that they hoped Lord 
Durham would quit the Whigs and " set up for 
himself." The Whigs were evidently quite aware 
of this feeling and cordially hated Lord Durham 
for it. There had been a fierce outburst of rage 
between Lord Durham and Lord Brougham at a 
banquet given to Lord Grey in Edinburgh in 1 834 
when the Whigs were out of office ; and the two 
antagonists threatened a renewal of the fight when 
they met again in the House of Lords ; but the 
opportunity for this was not given them. When 
Melbourne's Government of 1835 was formed 
Lord Durham was shelved, being sent as Ambas- 
sador to St. Petersburg, and the Great Seal was 
not offered to Brougham but put in comnussion, 
a deadly affront which he never forgave. Lord 
Brougham had an abnormally developed capacity 
for hatred, and much as he hated the whole Whig 
Government, which had left him out, he hated 
Lord Durham even more. Events in Canada 
soon offered him the acute pleasure of wounding 
them through him. Lord Durham was looked 
upon as a sort of enfant Urrihie by the Whigs. 
Melbourne would not have him in either of his 
Cabinets. He was sent to St. Petersburg in 1835, 
and in 1837 Lord Melbourne wrote to Lord John 
Russell :— 

Everybody, after the experience we have had, must 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



X CANADA 191 

doubt whether there can be peace and harmony in a 
Cabinet of which Lord Durham is a member.' 

Durham was Lord Grey's son-in-law, and the 
violent quarrels between them appear from the 
Greville Memoirs to have been a constant source 
of gossip in official circles. When he returned 
from St. Petersburg it was therefore necessary to 
find something else to keep him quiet, and it was 
determined to send him to Canada. In this hap- 
hazard way was brought about one of the most 
epoch-making appointments in English history. 
Because his former colleagues could not get on 
with him, and because some of the Radicals at any 
rate wanted him to be their leader, and because he 
had a considerable power of making himself dis- 
agreeable at home, it was necessary to provide 
for Lord Durham abroad. The settlement of 
Canada, then in rebellion, was a task both difficult 
and, as the immediate event proved, thankless. It 
might very well have been the grave of a greater 
reputation than Lord Durham's then was. He 
accepted the post with '* inexpressible reluctance " ; 
but he did accept it, and left England in May 
1838, accompanied by Charles Buller, as his chief 
secretary and Chief Commissioner of Crown Lands, 
and by Wakefield in an official capacity. Lord 
Durham wished to make Wakefield Commissioner 
of Crown Lands in Canada, but the Prime Minister 

> Wilpok'* hifi tfLtti Jclm RMUtll. 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



i9» SIR WILLMM MOLESWORTH cu«-. 

and the Colonial Secretary, Lords Melbourne and 
Glenelg*, expressed a strong objection and Wake- 
field received no official post. 

It is not the object of the present pages to 
repeat the oft-told story of Lord Durham's success 
and failure : success, brilliant and lasting for 
Canada and for the Colonial Empire of Great 
Britain ; failure, official disgrace, and death from 
a broken heart for the High Commis^oner, 
abandoned and betrayed by the men who ought 
to have supported him at home. So far as it 
can be given in a few sentences, an outline of 
the Durham-Canada episode is, however, necessary. 
Immediately on his arrival in Canada, Lord 
Durham had to deal with the question of what 
to do with certain rebel leaders, who had con- 
fessed thdr guilt, and were in prison awaiting 
trial. He issued an Ordinance, 28th June 1838, 
banishing them to Bermuda. There were other 
rebels who had fied. The Ordinance decreed 
that if they returned they should suffer death. 
The Colonial Secretary at home gave his approval, 
and Lord Durham also received an autc^raph 
letter from Her Majesty signifying her approba- 
tion. Practically, in Canada, the Ordinance was 
a great success. The chief critidsm it received 
there was from the Loyalists, who considered 
it too lenient. But its practical success weighed 
for nothing with Lord Durham's enemies at 



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z CANADA 19J 

home. Lord Brougham opened fire with a great 
attack on his old enemy in the House of Lords 
on 7th August. He attacked the legality of the 
Ordinance. Lord Melbourne, instead of defend- 
ing the man who had courageously and success- 
fully dealt with a difficult situation, weakly gave 
way, and on nth August announced that the 
Ordinance would be disallowed by Her Majesty's 
Government. Lord Durham is said to have 
received the first intimation that he had been 
deserted by his chief from a paragraph in an 
American newspaper. He immediately returned 
home, without w^ting for his official recall. 

Miss Martineau, in her History of ike Thirty 
Tears* Peaces has given a deeply interesting account 
of Lord Durham's mission, and it is said that 
in writing it she was allowed access to a journal 
kept by Charles BuUer during the five months 
he was in Canada on Lord Durham's staff. That 
journal, if still in existence, would be an invalu- 
able addition to her history of the Durham 
mission. Miss Martineau writes as an enthusiastic 
supporter of Lord Durham. The events of the 
half-century which has passed since her book 
was written have justified the estimate she formed 
of Lord Durham and his detractors. They 
certainly have not justified the cold severity 
with which she refers to Wakefield. But she 
pre-eminently belongs to the ninety-and-nine just 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



■94 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

persons who need no repentance, and have no 
patience mih those who do need it. Lord 
Durham gave Wakefield a book with an inscrip- 
tion, in which he said he had never erred except 
when he had rejected Wakefield's advice.' Wake- 
field and Buller must always share with Lord 
Durham the glory of the Canadian settlement. 
The exact proportion of credit belonging to each 
will probably never be known, and it is a matter on 
which they themselves would have been profoundly 
indifferent : their enthusiasm was for getting the 
thing done on right lines, rather than for personal 
glory and renown. Dr. Garnett mentions an 
epigram current at the time, about the Yimous 
Report on Canada, "that Wakefield thought it, 
Buller wrote it, and Durham signed it." This 
underestimates the credit due to Lord Durham, 
but it is certain that Lord Durham's five months' 
mission to Canada, June to November 1838, 
would not have had in it the elements of per- 
manent success, now universally acknowledged, if 
it had not been for Wakefield's years of study 
given to Colonial questions. John Stuart Mill's 
share in the credit of the Canadian settlement 
ought never to be foi^otten. Wakefield produced 
a very considerable effect on his contemporaries : 
he was a man of an originating mind, and 
possessed unbounded energy, adroitness and re- 

1 Dr. GvDct'i Li/tt/lTaiifiiU. 



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source. But, as may easily be gathered from 
the letters already quoted, he was not a man 
to inspire confidence, either intellectually or 
morally. His greatest admirers must admit that 
Dr. Garnett is right in labelling his memory 
with the fatal word "unscrupulous." John Mill 
had the moral weight which Wakefield lacked, 
and his intellectual keenness, added to his moral 
force, gave him an influence over Molesworth 
and Buller which Wakefield could never have 
acquired. They made him, wherever he was, a 
leader of men. He has given an interesting 
account In his autobic^raphy, pp. 216-17, of his 
share in directing public opinion upon the value 
of Lord Durham's policy in Canada, and also to 
the influence he was able to exercise over Moles- 
worth and Buller. 

I had followed the Canadian events from the begin- 
ning : I had been one of the prompters of his [Lord 
Durham's] prompters : bis policy was almost exactly 
what mine would have been, and I was in a position to 
defend it. I wrote and published a manifesto in the 
Review [Ltndon and ff^ettmnster\ in which I took the 
very highest groimd in his behalf, claiming for him not 
mere acquittal but praise and honour. 

Lord Durham's Report is justly looked upon 
as a Charter of Colonial freedom ; it sounded almost 
for the first time in high places the note of 
Imperial Responwbility and of Imperial Unity. 



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i9b SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH caw. 

It gave no countenance to the craven policy which 
would misgoTern the Colonies to the point o^ 
rebellion and then *'cut the painter" and leave 
them to get out as best they could from the 
confusion and disaster into which the Home 
Government had helped to plunge them. Lord 
Durham reached England on ist December 1838. 
The Government had taken great pains to direct 
that no offidal honours should be shown to him on 
his arrival. The honours which were shown him 
were wholly unofficial and spontaneous : addresses, 
congratulatory meetings, and so forth. 

His Report was completed and handed to 
the Government in February 1839. Wakefield 
appears to have conceived the idea, whether well 
or ill founded cannot now be discovered, that the 
Government intended to bury the Report in the 
pigeon-holes of the Colonial Office, or at least only 
to publish fragments of it. To prevent this he 
communicated it to the press, and it appeared in 
the Timet on 8th February 1839. 

The Radical hopes that E)urham would be the 
leader they had so long waited for were doomed 
to disappointment. He died at Dover on lus way 
to the south of Europe on 28th July 1840, aged 
48. He had lived long enough to superintend the 
production of the Report and to devote himself 
to the instruction of his successor in Canada, Mr. 
C. Foulett Thompson, afterwards Lord Sydenham. 



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Sr William Molesworth's share in these great 
events consisted in the untiring energy with which 
he devoted himself to the task of educating 
Parliament and the country upon them. Refer- 
ence has already been made to his speeches in March 
1837 and in January 1838 on the question of 
Canada. He did not belong to the class of 
politicians who wait to see "how the cat jumps " ; 
he rather made it his business to make the cat 
jump the right way. His speech of the 23rd 
January 1838 is a remarkable performance from 
every point of view. Hardly a sentence is given 
to the suspension of the Canadian constitution, 
which he disapproved, so eager was he to support 
with all his strength the appointment of Lord 
Durham as Governor-General and High Com- 
missioner with extraordinary powers. He urged 
with remarkable foresight that the whole re- 
sponsibility of the settlement should be left to 
Lord Durham. He pointed out that the High 
Commissioner had a task of almost unexampled 
difficulty to perform : a revolted province to 
reconcile, the majesty of the law to enforce, the 
honour and dignity of Great Britain to sust^n, a 
form of free constitution best suited to the wants 
of the two Canadas to devise. Leave him free, was 
Sir William's argument, from the control of the 
Colonial Office and from specific instructions from 
the Home Government. 



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198 SIR WILLIAM MOLBSWORTH cup. 

Her Majesty's Ministers bad selected the person whom 
they deemed fittest for the office of Governor-General ; 
it woidd therefore be most absurd to shackle him in any 
way by the orders of persons who were virtually acknow- 
ledged to be less capable than himself. In proportion as 
Lord Durham was independent of the control of the 
Colonial Office, or even of Her Majesty's Government, 
in exactly the same ratio would a probability of a success- 
ful termination of these affairs increase. 

The speech contains an examination of Canadian 
grievances. Besides those already referred to, the 
absence of the control of the purse by the repre- 
sentative chamber and the irresponsible character 
of the Legislative Council, he mentioned that the 
House of Assembly had desired to appoint an 
agent to act for the Colony in England : the 
Legislative Council had refused to permit it. 
This Agents Bill had been regularly introduced 
and passed in the House of Assembly every year 
for thirty years, and as regularly rejected by the 
Council. He also drew attention to the fact that 
the Bill passed in Canada and strongly recom- 
mended by the Governor to the Home authorities, 
for granting permanent salaries to the judges, thus 
securing their independence, had been disallowed 
by the Tory Colonial Secretary, Lord Ripon. He 
compl^ned that the L^islative Council opposed 
every measure which aimed at securing the inde- 
pendence of the judges. 



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X CANADA 199 

Instead of the judges holding their offices, as in this 
country, during good behaviour, they held their appoint- 
ments during the will of the Crown, . . . Moreover, 
judges sat upon the bench who were totally unfit for the 
office. For instance, Mr. Spring Rice, while Secretary 
for the Colonies, acknowledged that Mr. Gale was an 
improper person to be a judge, yet Mr. Gale remained 
in that high and responsible situation. 

Another judge, also named, " who was proved to 
have b^n drunk on the bench and an habitual 
drunkard, nevertheless continued to be a judge." 
The Legislative Council had likewise in 1826 
rejected a School Bill, an action which had suddenly 
deprived 40,000 children of the means of education. 
In bringing forward these and many other provo- 
cative actions which had at last produced armed 
rebellion, Sir William Molesworth was freely 
accused of wishing well to the enemies of his 
country. He repudiated the suggestion with 
vigour, and swd he fully shared in "the generous 
sentiment of a free people to be most anxious and 
to take care that wrong should not be done to 
any one connected with them by blood, and he, 
for one, should be ready, when it was proved that 
there was risk of injury to the just rights of his 
fellow-countrymen in Canada, to support any 
measure duly calculated to protect those interests 
and advance their well-being "... but he goes 
on to show that in the important matter of repre- 



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lOo SIR WILUAM MOLESWORTH cha^. 

sentation the English element in Canada had not 
been satisfied with equal justice. They had 
secured a representative system which gave them 
about twice as much electoral power as the French, 
and were demanding changes which would give 
them about ten times as much, i.e. one representa- 
tive to every 2600 Englishmen and one to every 
24,000 Frenchmen. 

The English Canadians seem to have had a. 
good spice of Stephanas Johannes Paulus Krugcr 
in thdr constitution, only they had a Home 
Government over them which with all its faults 
saved the ^tuation. 

In these two speeches which preceded Lord 
Durham's mission, and in subsequent speeches. 
Sir William Molesworth thoroughly identified 
himself with the reform of Colonial administra- 
tion. Private letters from Wakefield while he 
was in Canada with Lord Durham, and several 
from John Stuart Mill on Canada, are among the 
most interesting in the Pencarrow collection. 
Lord Durham had heard that Lord Melbourne 
had thrown him over, and disallowed the Ordin- 
ance in September 1838. On 29th September 
Wakefield was writing to Molesworth. The letter 
is dated from Quebec. 

My dear Molbsworth — ^Just as a messenger is 
starting to go by the Great Western, Buller gets a letter 
to say you are very ill. He has a true regard for you, 



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X CANADA loi 

and is ovenet hy this bad news. Need I tell you that I 
share his feelings ? 

Lord D[urham] resigns. You have made sure of it. 
You would have divided the House of Commons against 
the dirty Whig-Melbourne Indemnity Bill. 

He is mortally but coolly and immovably offended at 
everything Whig, but (what we should not have ex- 
pected of him) stifles all feelings of personal anger, and 
acts with admirable calmness. He has won the respect 
of these people and the hearts of all America. No other 
man can settle these alFairs. He muit [who can doubt 
it i). May you be men enough to enjoy the prospect I 
For my part, I would not exchange the present prospect 
for any that could have arisen from the quiet completion 
of his work here. 

Buller has been true to his avowed principles. He 
has ever been the advocate of mercy and justice against 
policy. Not so I ; who have had deeply impressed on 
me the opinion first suggested by you — that the Canadians 
are a miserable race, and that this country mutt be made 
English by one means or anothn*. 

They call for my letter. I wish you recovered with 
all my heart. Of course I go back with Lord D. I 
hope to reach England by the end of November. If 
you are well you must come to town for his arrival. It 
will be a great occasion in English politics. Good-bye, 
my dear Molesworth. — Believe me, yours most affec- 
tionately, E. G. Wakefield. 

The next letter was written immediately after 
Wakefield's arrival in England. He had preceded 
Lord Durham by a few days :— 



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»oi SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chaf. 

Hatch ETTS, N»v. 17. 

My dear MolE3Worth — I have received your 
remarkable letter. It seems as if you had been with us 
in Canada. Where did you get so true a view of the 
case? 

I shall start by the mail as soon as I hear of Lord D.'s 
arrival, and will write to you by the post the same day. 

Could not you come to Plymouth ? No. Wooll- 
combe, I find from Mrs. fiuller, is engaged about an 
address to Lord D. 

I do not expect to be able to stay in the West, but 
would not miss seeing you on any account. Perhaps you 
will think it right to come to town. . , . 

Then follows a paragraph already quoted in 
appreciation of Sir William Molesworth's Report 
on Transportation ; and he continues : — 

Thank God you have not gone into Roebuckism. 
I almost agree with you about general politics, but 
not quite. Great events, I think, are not hz off. But 
of all this by-and-bye. . . . Our noble friend Mill is 
ordered to Malta. His lungs are not organically diseased, 
but will be if he remains here. He thought till the other 
day the disease was mortal, but yet (agged away at this 
Durham case as if he had expected to live for ever.— 
Yours most truly, £. G. Wakefield. 

Probably Mr. Mill felt that the prospect of a 
short life was as great an inducement to industry as 
he could have. It is not always easy to follow 
Wakelteld's reasoning. 

Between the dates of Wakefield's two letters. 



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on 19th October 1838, Mill was writing to Moles- 
worth mainly about the Review. It strikes one 
cutiously to find Mill, whom many among us 
remember as the gentlest and most refined of men, 
writing about " this cursed Canada business." It 
is one among many instances which the letten 
already quoted aiFord of the change in manners 
between the early and the later years of the nine- 
teenth century. The letter to Sir William contains 
the following : — 

The present turn in Canada affairs brings Lord 
Durham home, incensed to the utmost (as Buller writes 
to me) with both Whigs and Tories — Whigs especially, 
and in the best possible mood for setting up for himself; 
and if so, the formation of an efficient party of moderate 
Radicals, of which our Review will be the organ, is certain 
— the Whigs wiU be kicked out never more to rise, and 
Lord D. will be head of the Liberal party, and ultimately 
Prime Minister. 

I am delighted with Buller ; his letters to his lather 
and mother and to me show him in a nobler character 
than he ever appeared in before, and he and Wakefield 
appear to be acting completely as one man, speaking to 
Lord D. with the utmost plainness, giving him the most 
courageous and judicious advice, which he receives both 
generously and wisely. He is the man for us, and we 
shall have him and make a man of him yet. . . . There 
is a great game for you to play in the next session of 
Parliament. Buller has the best cards in the House of 
Commons, and I think he will play them well, but yours 
arc the next best. As for me, this has awakened me out 



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104 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

of a period of torpor about politics during which my 
Logic has been advancing rapidly. This winter, I think, 
will see me through the whole of it except the rewriting. 
— Yours most truly, J. S. Miix. 

Nearly a month later, Lord Durham still being 
OR the high seas on his way to Plymouth, which 
he reached on ist December, Mill wrote to 
Molesworth agwn : — 

India HomB, 

Nev. 14, 1838. 
Deas. Molesworth — What think you of all this 
rumpus in Canada ? I find all the Whigs and Moderates 
here blame Lord Durham for the Proclamation,! ^nd he 
has already the greater part of the real Radicals against 
him for the Ordinance. But I think the Liberal party in 
the country generally is with him. I mean to stand by 
him, as my letters from BuUer and Rintoul's from Wake- 
field convince me that he was quite right in resigning, 
and that he comes home iiilly prepared (if the damned 
pseudo-Radicals do not get round him and talk him over) 
to set up for himself. For the purpose of acting at once 
upon him and upon the country in that sens {sie) I have 
written an elaborate defence of him, which will be pub- 
lished in the Review next week, and will be in the news- 
papers before that. I hope exceedingly that you will 
approve of it, for if this man really tries to put himself at 
the head of the Liberals, your standing by him will do a 
world of good. . . . Write to mc sometimes to say how 
you are. . , . Ever yours, J. S. Mill. 

^ On RceiTiDt oRidal intimition tiM the Qoceo'i GovernnieBt hid dit. 
allowed hia Ordiiunce, Lord Durham iuacd i proclinutioa to the eflKt thit 
there w» DOW Dothing to prevEiit the retara of the ptiMneri who hid been 
binuhed by the OrdiouiGC. 



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Mill's spirited defence of Lord Durham pro- 
duced a great effect on public opinion in England, 
and prepared the way for the Report which was 
soon to follow. Many of the sentences of the 
Report are curiously applicable to the situation 
in South AJrica at the present day. Lord Durham 
says: — 

I expected to find a. contest between a Government 
and a people — I found two nations warring in the bosom 
of a single state. I found a struggle, not of i»-inciples, 
but of races ; and I perceived that it would be idle to 
attempt any amelioration of laws or institutions until we 
could first succeed in terminating the deadly animosity 
that now separates the inhabitants of Lower Canada into 
hostile divisions of French and English. 

Such words strengthen the hope that what 
has been done in about sixty years in Canada is 
not beyond the powers of statesmanship in Africa. 



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CHAPTER XI 

THE EDITION OF HOBBES AND SIR W. MOLES- 
WORTh's retirement FROM PARLIAMENT 

Sir William Molesworth's poKtical activity 
during 1838 was considerably restricted by bad 
health. Wakefield refers to the fact that if 
Molesworth had been able to be in the House, 
he would have divided it against the measure 
in which the Melbourne Government threw 
Durham to the wolves. A letter from Charles 
Austin to Molesworth, written in November 1838, 
refers more fully to this illness, and also to a 
piece of literary work which Sir William was 
now diligently pursuing, whenever his political 
engagements allowed him enough leisure, viz. the 
edition of the works of Hobbes, the philosopher 
of Malmesbury. The letter illustrates how much 
Mill and Molesworth had to do in educating even 
the most enlightened of their own party on the 
real significance of the Durham -Canada episode. 
A portion only of the letter is here reproduced : — 



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CHAP. XI THE EDITION OF HOBBES 107 

Chaxles Austin to W. Molisworth 

Nm. 6, 1838. 

I grow more and more tired of politics ; I think I 
shall one day (and that shortly] give them up, like Lord 
Durham, in a pet. That Lord has disappointed me and 
done great mischief — I don't so much mean to Canada, 
or even to the Ministers, as to the only real Liberal party 
. . . whom he has convinced of his incapacity for leading, 
and who are now without a head. He will hardly form 
a Government, as the phrase is, on his retwn under these 
circumstances . . . nor will Buller lead the House ot 
Commons. And yet with common temper and prudence 
I think he might have led us all one day. . . . They say 
that Lord Brougham told Lyndhurst the other day that 
if he could but turn out these fools, he (Lyndhurst) 
might make himself easy, for that he (Brougham) would 
go abroad for a year ! A pretty specimen of the motives 
and egotism of the man. 

I hope that you are as careless about politics as I am, 
and are busy in taking care of your health. I am very 
glad you have given up the journey to Paris [Sir William 
had intended going there with the Grotes, but his doctor 
strongly dissuaded him from the journey, and he gave it 
up]. It was really a plan more worthy of Lord Durham 
than of you. There are three reasons why I am anxious 
that you should live and not die — or, rather, kill yourself; 
one perhaps you will not value, even if you believe it — it 
is that I should be personally sorry ; another that I want 
to see Hobbes completed and on my bookshelves ; the 
last that you will, if so minded, and take the proper steps, 
be of great use to Liberal principles and the Liberal 
party, which God grant. 



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«o8 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chat. 

All this to induce you to mind your health, take exer- 
cise and live reasonably. 

This to a man of twenty-eight is very significant 
of a feeble hold on life, which his friends could 
not but recognise and dread the issue of. But 
for one who was never robust, and who had 
suiFered in that year from a more than usually 
severe physical breakdown, Sir William's output 
of work in 1838 might have put the most healthy 
of his friends to shame. He had presided over 
the Parliamentary G>mmittee on Transportation, 
had marshalled its evidence, and had written, with 
the exception of a few paragraphs, its report 
He had made two very important sfweches in the 
House of Commons on Colonial questions — one 
on the second reading of the Canada Bill on 
23rd January, and one on the state of the 
Colonies on 6th March. Both run to some forty 
to fifty pages ; both are crammed with facts and 
figures, the verification of which must have entailed 
days of close application. The first of these 
speeches has been already referred to ; the second 
was devoted to setting forth the value and im- 
portance of Colonial possessions, and combated 
the then current feeling in the Radical party that 
the best thing to do was to cut them adrift. 
He had worked actively as a director of the 
New Zealand Association to promote in practice 
the views which he advocated in theory, and he 



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XI THE EDITION OF HOBBES 109 

had made progress with his edition of the works 
of Hobbes. Not a bad year's work for a 
valetudinarian ! But it will be remembered that 
when he presented hb constituents at Leeds with 
a reprint of the Report of the Transportation 
Committee, he excused himself for having been 
prevented through ill-heatth from taking so active 
a part in the business of Parliament as his duties 
towards them would have rendered desirable. Sir 
William had engaged permanent and efficient 
literary as^stance to help him with the Hobbes. 
As originally designed, it was intended to extend 
to fourteen volumes and to include a life of the 
philosopher ; it really ran to sixteen volumes 
without the life, which was never written. These 
volumes are now accepted as the standard edition 
of Hobbes's works. Sar William spared neither 
rime, labour, nor money to make them as perfect 
as possible. He is said to have spent ^^6000 over 
the edition. " Hobbes " is a very frequent subject 
in the letters ^r William received ft'om his friends 
in the year 1838. John Mill wrote in October 
that he would be happy to give any assistance 
in his power. Molesworth had evidently asked 
him if his father had left any essays or other 
references to the philosophy of Hobbes, published 
or unpublished ; for Mill says that he believes his 
father's only reference to Hobbes was contained 
in the- fragment on Mackintosh. 



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*io SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

Although the references in his own and his 
friends' letters to the edition of Hobbcs do not 
begin till 1838, Sir Williajn had been at work on 
it for some time before this. Mrs. Grote says she 
suggested it to him in 1835 or 1836. The first 
volume was all but ready for publication by the 
end of September 1838, and he had then made 
good progress with the succeeding volumes. On 
27th September 1838 he wrote to Mr. Grote to 
zik permission to dedicate the edition to him, and 
on the same day another letter to Mrs. Grote to 
press the same request. The letter to Grote has 
already been printed in full in Mrs. Grote's 
Personal Life of George Grote, and it is unnecessary 
to reproduce it here. He speaks of his desire to 
dedicate the volumes to Grote "as a testimony 
of admiration and regard." There is a note of 
weariness in the letter : " My health is somewhat 
better. ... I am afraid there is no immediate 
prospect of any good, and I am very tired of the 
wearisome broils of political life." The letter to 
Mrs. Grote of the same date b^ins with a refer- 
ence to the proposed visit to Paris, which he after- 
wards abandoned. 

PiNCAKRow, Stptemher 17, 1838. 

My dear Mrs. Gkote — I was wondering why I had 

not had the felicity of hearing from you, and was about 

to write to inquire. Sorry I am to hear of Grote's 

affliction \ it is one in which " grin and bear it " is the 



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XI THE EDITION OF HOBBES iii 

only rule of conduct. I shall be at your orders about the 
17th November; but remeinber I am to be with yen — 
lodgings or hotel, I don't care which — but I won't be 
separated, I should have preferred January, as it would 
have left me more time for my business before the 
commencement of Parliament. Charles Austin and hi* 
sister came here on Monday i the forma* goes away in a 
day or two j the latter, I believe, Stays. You need be in 
no alarm. Young ladies don't nowadays die of love, 
but /ail in kve again, a much more sensible course.^ 
I am, as you knovr, not a marrying man ; I have other 
things to do, amongst which the most important is my 
edition of Hobbes. Austin and myself have been 
discussing this subject with great interest. He intended 
once to undertake it himself, and has given me much 
useful information. I find, however, that it is a more 
serious undertaking than I at first thought. There will 
be no less than thirteen volumes, not including my life 
of Hobbes, which will make in all fourteen.* I hope to 

' Thia ia in reference to (ome gonip in the circle reapectiug Miu Aaitio'i 
Cttliaf for her hwt lad alio a rather bitter rcmioiicsice of hii owD eiperi- 



* The edition of tlic worict of Hobbei wia tiot finiahid till 184;, lad, la 
already mentioned, extended to aiiteen volumca. A preaentation copy waa 
aent by Sir William Moktwortb to the chm Duke of Oevonabire, with whotc 
family Hobbea had been ao btimately aiaociatcd. The Duke wrote :— 

London, 7»» 11, <E47. 

Sb — I fear yon mnit think me the moat nngratelB! peraon in the world 
for not having looner acknowledged the intereatini and valnable addition to 
my library that yon have hid the goodneM to pretent to me. 

Owing to the itale a( the rejBira that my houae hat been undergoing, the 
book* bad been laid by, and it i> only to-day, on coming from Chiiwiek, 
where I have been itayiag, that I hive >een ibat magnliiccnt compilation. 

I beg yOD to accept my linarat thanki. I know not whether yon have 
been to Hardvick ; iboald it ever niit your convenience to go there, I hope 
yOD will let me know the time, and if I ahonld not be able to receive yn 



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sii SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

have the first volume of Hobbes's works out in January. 
I have written to-day to Mr. Grote to ask permission to 
dedicate them to him. I wish for that permission for 
two reasons — ist, because I shall ever feel the deepest 
gratitude for the philosophical instruction he gave me 
when I first knew him, which induced me to study 
Hobbes and similar authors, and created a taste in my 
mind for that style of reading ; 2nd, because I have a 
greater regard and esteem for himself and his wife than 
for any other pair of people in this wicked world. 

You can't conceive how agreeable Charles Austin has 
made himself. ... He is gone with his sister and Mary 
to see the coast scenery ; I was far too lazy to accompany 
them, preferring much to enjoy the fancy of being in 
your society by writing to you. . . . With regard to 
your gardener, mine, for whom I have the greatest 
regard, is dying rapidly of a consumption. He cannot 
by any possibility live over this winter. I am in want 
of a good one, but he must be really good, able not 
merely to look after gardens, but understanding planta- 
tions, etc. I don't know whether your? will do, and I 
know how very hase people generally arc in their re- 
commendations when they wish to get an old servant a 
place. ... I will send you a list of the volumes of 
Hobbes. I begin with the second volume, which, 
together with the three following, and the three first of 
the Latin, will make a work such as there are but few of 
in this world. The first volume w!U come last in 
publishing, so that I shall have had all the benefit of 

there myulf, I hope tlut yon waali inluliit fbr ■ diy or two that plate, wWc 
yaii WDold find to aaaj recollectiani of him whoie memory jdd hiic done 
w mtich to hiKiinir.^BelicvE mc, Sir, your mnch abligot and obedi^t 



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XI THE EDITION OP HOBBBS itj 

perusing and re-penuing, studying and re-«tud)nng, Hobbei 
in the correction of the proofs, etc. It will be not 
much less than a four years' work, and in that time I 
nuy produce something not very t»d in the shape of a 
Life. — I am yours affectionately, 

William Molbsworth. 



Mr. Grote immediately acceded to Sir William's 
request in respect of the dedication : — 

Thkiadnbidli Srnin', 
Ott. %nd, 1838. 

Mr DEAR MoLESWORTH — Your letter respecting 
your project of editing Hobbea* works reached me at 
Burnham on Sunday. I cannot but feel flattered, as well 
as pleased, at the wish you express to dedicate it to me, 
and I most willingly consent that you should do so. Our 
poor friend and instructor, old Mill — utinam vivtrtt ! h* 
was the man to whom such a dedication would have been 
more justly due. . . . 

In one respect I am a very fit person to have the work 
dedicated to me ; for I take a warm and anxious interest 
ill its completion and success, not less from my esteem 
and friendship for the editor than from my admiration of 
the author edited. If there are any points on which you 
desire my advice and co-operation, be assured that it will 
give me sincere pleasure to afford it. You have got a 
copious and lofty subject, affording scope for every variety 
of intellectual investigation — embracing morals, politics, 
and metaphysics, and including even the English Civil 
War and the Restoration. It is worthy of the most 
capacious intellect, as well as of the most unremitting 



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SI4 SIR WILLIAM MOLE5WORTH chat. 

perseverance, and I trust that you will devote labour 
enough to enable you to do it full justice. 

After a reference, partly laudatory and partly 
critical, to the third volume, then just published, 
of Comte's Traiti de PkUcsophie Positive, Grote 
continues : — 

Our contemporary politics are in a state of profound 
slumber, from which I fear they arc not likely to awakc^ 
except to cause us disgust and discouragement. There is 
nothing in them fit to occupy the attention of a common- 
place but sincere patriot, much less of a philosopher. 

I congratulate you on having fixed upon a subject 
which will give you steady intellectual occupation. Sure 
I am, by my own experience as weU as from all other 
considerations, that you will be much the happier for it. — 
Believe me, my dear Molesworth, yours very faithfully, 
Geo. Grotb. 

This letter shows plainly that Grote, whether 
r^arded as a "commonplace patriot" or as "a 
philosopher," had not grasped the great importance 
of the events which had just taken place in Canada. 
Sir William Molcsworth's strength as a practical 
statesman was more and more being devoted to the 
laying of a sound foundation on which to build 
the Colonial Empire of the United Kingdom. 
South Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and through 
them the other Colonies, bear his mark, and are now 
to-day what they are, largely as the result of his 
labours and that of the group with whom he 



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XI RETIREMENT FROM PARLIAMENT 215 

worked. But Grote, to whom at the outset of 
his political life he had owed so much, could see 
nothing in the state of contemporary politics worthy 
the attention of patriot or philosopher. He was 
longing to be at work ag^n on his History of 
Greece, but Greece as the first great coloniang 
power did not stimulate his interest in the British 
Colonics, but tended rather to deaden his interest 
in the living problems of his own day. 

This divergence of interest between himself and 
Sir William Molesworth accounts for their being 
in less constant association in the House of 
Commons than heretofore. They still saw a great 
deal of each other socially, and Mrs. Grote especi- 
ally made Sir William what she called her " chum 
and partner." Formerly, when Sir William had 
desired to quit politics for literatiu-e, the Grotes' 
influence had been put into the political scale ; 
now it was the other way, and in their frequent 
social intercourse they took advantage of every 
mood of weariness and irritation, so inevitable to 
a man of Molesworth's feeble health, to ui^e the 
positive desirability of his leaving Parliament to 
devote himself to literature. 

Already, in 1838, Sir William had begun to 
receive complaints from his constituents relative to 
the strong line he was taking in Parliament in 
attacking the Colonial policy of the Government. 
In May of that year Sir William wrote to his 



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ai6 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chaf. 

mother, " I think I am all right again at Leeds, as I 
find Banes' paper ' ^rees with mc on Canada." 

He was soon, however, to take a step, right in 
itself, but fatal to his chances of again successfully 
contesting the seat. In 184.0 the conflicting in- 
terests of France and England in Egypt and Syria 
brought the two countries to the brink of war. 
The rebellion in Canada in 1838 was probably 
not without its share in fanning the smouldering 
enmity between France and England. Besides, in 
1 840 the long wars by sea and land, ending with 
the overthrow of Napoleon in 1 8 1 5, were fresh in 
the memory of many on both sides of the Channel. 
At the critical moment, when war trembled in the 
balance. Sir William Molesworth actively exerted 
himself to promote peace. He called a peace 
meeting in Leeds and urged the reasons for friend- 
ship with France rather than for war. The war 
fever had got so far that the leading newspapers 
were making careful enumerations of the fighting 
strength by sea and land on both sides. It needed 
some courage to speak for peace ; but courage 
was what Sir William Molesworth never ran short 
of. The peace meeting was a success, as success is 
measured by promoting the immediate object in 
view ; but it was a nail in Sir William's coffin as 
member for Leeds. 

' Mr., (fterwirdi Sir Edward, Baino, editor and proprietor of the LaJi 
Mirairy, wu Sir William'! colleigae in the repraeiitition of Leeda. He 
lUo retired, (iam itl-he*ltb, before the Geoenl ElectloD of 1S41. 



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Ti RETIREMENT FROM PARUAMENT 117 

John Stuart Mill and Charles Buller wrote 
enthusiastically to him about the excellent effect 
produced by the peace meeting. Mill said, writing 
on 19th November 1840 : — 

Your Leeds demonstration seems to me a very proper 
thing, done in the very best way, and I think that is the 
general impression about it. I cannot but think it has 
done, and will do, good both in France and here, and I 
am sure it has bad a good elFect in raising your public 
character. 

On 20th November of the same year Charles 
Buller wrote from London : — 

Mr DEAR MoLESWORTH — You are an honour to your 
name, your county, your country, and your species. Your 
speech at Leeds is one of the sole gleams of common sense 
that has passed across the shades of our national apathy 
and bad feeling. Your effort has had no immediate result, 
not even an echo among the inert cowards of the Radical 
party. But you have won golden opinions, believe me, 
from the very people who have been least inclined to 
praise you hitherto i and in advocating peace and alliance 
with France you take a ground on which you may be 
Burc that the great majority will join you sooner or later. 
One most admirable feature of your speech was that, 
while it assailed the rascally Whig-Tory pfliey^ it kept 
clear of assailing either pirty^ and so lifts you above any 
• Jiarge of party purposes. 

Sr William wrote enthusiastically to Wooll- 
combe about the success of this peace meeting at 



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si8 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

Leeds. After a vehement outburst agunst the 
Whigs he writes : — 

They left not a stone unturned ; everything was 
against me, municipal elections, weather, etc., every kind 
of menace and entreaty. I thought up to the last moment 
they would beat us ; fancy my delight in finding eight 
thousand persons in the Cloth Hall yard waiting to hear 
me. I spolce for an hour and a quarter, excessively well, 
in a voice of thunder, to the most attentive audience I 
ever addressed. You might have heard a pin drop. 
Every resolution was carried unanimously, not a hand 
raised or a voice heard against me. Had the meeting 
been packed instead of being summoned by handbill 
without an effort to secure a friendly audience, it could 
not more perfectly have agreed with me. The same 
might be done in any town in England. Can't you make 
a stir at Devonport ? Such meetings will have a most 
conciliating effect in France. 

I left Leeds at a quarter to seven on Saturday, and 
reached Pencarrow on Monday evening at six o'clock, 
500 miles in less than forty-eight hours, ten of which I 
rested in London or slept at Ilmimter, thus travelling at 
the rate of 13 miles an hour throughout. I am not 
much tired. The Grates are here. — Yours, 

Wm. Molesworth. 

It was, however, one thing to win the applause 
of Mill and Buller and of the 8000 artisans 
assembled in the yard of the Cloth Hall, and 
another to soothe the resentment of the political 
chiefe in Leeds, who were already offended by the 



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XI RETIREMENT FROM PARLIAMENT 119 

Opposition to the Whig Government shown by 
their member. 

The peace meeting of 1840 completed an 
alienation which had already produced a strain, and 
Sir William decided to withdraw from the re- 
presentation of the town and from Parliament. 
Grote retired fr^m Parliament at the same time ; 
the diminished Liberal majorities of 1835 and 1837 
were entirely swept away by the rising tide of 
Gjnservatism, and Sir Robert Peel came into 
office in 1 84 1 as Prime Minister with a majority 
of seventy-six. Lord John Russell stood in the 
place of Grote for the City of London, but only 
managed to squeeze in with a majority of seven 
over the highest imsuccessftd candidate.* 

Before severing his connection with the House 
of Commons and with Leeds, Sir William delivered 
several important speeches on Colonial topics. 
In June 1839 he seconded Mr. Ward's resolutions 
on Colonial lands, and dealt with the main points 
of Wakefield's system — the neccsaty for bringing 
labour and capital to develop the natural resources 
of the Colonies. With this end in view he advocated 
assisted emigration, taldng care to keep the pro- 
portion between the two sexes approximately equal. 
He showed how the transportation system was, in 
a manner, a realisation of Wakefield's scheme of 

1 Pu-liimait wii diwol*cd io June lt^l,tnd SirRoIiert PttI hid farmed 
bii MiDBtr7 it the h-glnni-i of SepUmber. 



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320 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

bringing labour to the unoccupied Colonial lands, 
but that it was accompanied by intolerable evils 
which fatally condemned it. Assisted emigration 
would possess the economic advant^es to the 
Colonies which had been associated with transporta- 
tion without its overwhelming moral and social 
evils. It must be remembered that the rush of 
emigration to the gold-fields of Australia did not 
take place till about thirteen years later than the 
date with which we arc now dealing. It of course 
did all that was needed. As soon as gold was found 
there was no need to assist emigration, so great 
was the rush to the gold-fields. It was, however, 
imposnble to foresee this in 1839 ^"■'^ 1840. 
When Sir William Molesworth first b^an his 
work as a Colonial statesman, several colonics were 
almost wholly dependent on convicts for their 
supply of labour, and if transportation was to be 
stopped, it was necessary to devise some other 
means of encouraging the fiow of labour from the 
old world to the new. This speech of 1839 also 
cont^ns some interesting passages on scientific 
sheep-breeding and the experiments which were 
already in process for improving the quality and 
weight of the fleeces. Sir William stated that the 
value of wool exported from New South Wales 
and Van Dicmen's Land to Great Britun had 
amounted in the previous year (1838)10^^600,000, 
and its weight to 8,000,000 pounds. At the begin- 



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XI RETIREMENT FROM PARLIAMENT ssi 

ning of the century he said that the Australian 
colonies did not send us a single pound of wool ; 
they were then supplying about one-seventh of 
our total import of that commodity, and he 
ventures on a prophecy : *' I feel persuaded that 
in less than another haif-century, if these colonies 
be properly managed, our commerce with them in 
wool alone ^11 exceed our whole trade in that 
commodity at the present moment." He was 
well within the mark ; the 8,000,000 pounds of 
1838 had grown to 427,974,038 pounds In 1888, 
and since that date has reached the enormous total 
of 541,394,083 pounds (in 1895) out of a total 
import of 775,379,063 pounds. 

Sir William spoke i^ain on Transportation tn 
the House of Commons on 5th May 1840, when 
he went over the arguments and ^cts contained 
in the Report of his Committee — a long exhaustive 
speech, covering seventy-six pages of print, showing 
the evils of the system from every point of view 
and the necessity of its entire abolition. He had 
given a more general and discursive speech to his 
constituents in Leeds in the previous February, 
" On the State of the Nation " ; he calls attention 
to the condition of the working classes, the riots 
in Birmingham, rebellion in Wales, Chartism 
growing up in every part of the country ; and he 
shows that although the outward and visible signs 
of this unrest might be put down by the police or 



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122 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chw. 

by military force, "yet the cause of the disease 
remuns untouched and will produce fresh con- 
vulsions unless a searching remedy be applied to 
it." He then inquires into the causes and finds 
them in the ignorance and misery of the great 
masses of the people. He advocates as remedies, 
first, abolition of the corn laws which would bring 
cheap food to the hungry ; second, assisted emigra- 
tion and colonisation ; and third, " most important 
of all," national education. This is a mere outline, 
filled in by Sir William with graphic details which 
can be read with interest even now, sixty years 
after they were spoken, especially ;n those passages 
where he refers to the Colonies and his hop>es and 
anticipations for their fiiture. With his accus- 
tomed honesty and straightforwardness he said 
that while sympathising with the working classes 
in their desire to possess the parliamentary suffrage, 
he did not anticipate that the vote in itself would 
improve the economic position of the people or 
tend to allay the discontent occasioned by want. 
He spoke against the Chartists and their attacks 
on property and their appeal to physical force, and 
called them "the worst enemies of pr<^ressive 
reform." The speech shows Sir William at his 
best : ardent for reform, going to the root causes 
of the evils he attacked ; outspoken and honest in 
telling a popular audience where he thought they 
were following false leaders. He had at this date 



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XI RETIREMENT FROM PARUAMENT «} 

no positive intention of retiring from the repre- 
sentation of Leeds, as the conclusion of the speech 
will show : — 

Now, gentlemen, but one word more before I sit 
down, with regard to what I tna^ call our personal affairs. 
I became your representative at the express wish of a 
large body of the electors. As long as you approve of 
my general conduct and votes in Parliament, so long do I 
wish to be your representative. [Great cheering.] I 
told you on the hustings that until triennial Parliaments 
became the law of the land, I should be ready to resign 
my seat whenever you might express a desire to that 
effect. [No, No.] I repeat that promise on the present 
occasion. [Loud cheers.] In the event of a dissolution, 
I shall be ready to stand again ; I shall be most proud to 
be your representative if you still wish me to fill that high 
and responsible office. [Vociferous cheering.] But if, on 
the other hand, you prefer any other person either in this 
town or elsewhere [reiterated cries of "No, No," which 
prevented the hon. baronet firom proceeding]. Gentle- 
men, I feel extremely gratified by this expression of your 
approbation. I wish, however, to speak not merely to 
you, who approve of my conduct, but to the whole of 
this great constituency, and let them decide upon the 
course they may think proper to adopt. That is the 
reason I speak in this manner, for I must feel that if all 
were like you, there could be no doubt on the subject. 
I say, on the other hand, if there is any other person, 
either in this town or elsewhere, that you prefer, distinctly 
state the (act to me, let there be no false delicacy on the 
subject, and I assure you that I will at once withdraw. 
For I should be grieved to see the represenution of this 



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J1+ SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

great town Ml into the hands of the Tories. [Loud cheers.} 
It has been rumoured, I know not whether correctly or 
not, that some of my votes have given dissatisfiiction to 
some persons who supported me at the last election. If 
this be the case, I cannot help it. I have always acted, 
and intend to act, upon my own independent convictions, 
and upon no other terms will I consent to sit in Parlia- 
ment or take part in public life. [ Immense cheering. J I 
will neither be so obstinate, nor so presumptuous as to 
assert that I may not have at times committed errors of 
judgment [hear, hear] — but I will assert that I have 
always endeavoured to act in accordance with those 
principles which I professed to you on the hustings. On 
those same principles I shall continue to act, if you again 
return me to the House of Commons. [We will, we will.] 
If not, I shall retire — [No, No] I shall retire without 
sorrow to private life, always feeling grateful for the 
favours you have shown me, and considering it to be one 
of the events in my public career, of which I may be 
most proud, that I have represented for several years the 
electors of this great and important city. [Great cheering, 
clapping of hands and waving of handkerchiefs, the whole 
of the company rising from their seats as the hon. 
baronet sat down.] 

Even now the people who attend meetings are 
not always those who have votes and use them ; 
but the discrepancy between the voice of the people 
in public meeting and as expressed in the polling- 
booth was still more marked in the time when the 
j^io householders were supreme. This enthusi- 
astic meeting in February 1840 was followed in 



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XI RETIREMENT FROM PARLIAMENT laj 

November by the meeting in favour of a peaceful 
settlement of our differences with France, and it 
was chiefly because of this that Molesworth felt 
that he could not retain his hold on the constituency 
and that his best course was to retire without seek- 
ing re-election. 



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CHAPTER XII 

1841-45 LIFE AT PENCARROW MARRIAGE 

All his life Sir William Molesworth was an 
enthusiastic horticulturist and lover of trees. 
Cornwall is a county of beautifiJ gardens, and 
Pencarrow is an Eden even among the gardens of 
Cornwall. It was very lai^ely Sir William's 
creation. The Italian garden on the south ^de 
of the house, one blaze of colour from early spring 
till late autumn, has a fountain in the centre, placed 
there by him, fashioned after the model of that 
in the Piazza Navona in Rome. This garden 
is slightly sunk, and the grounds, covered with 
beautiful trees, rise gently round three »des of it, 
affording, with the house, shelter from every gale 
that blows. A small stream has been dexterously 
led down one of the slojnng banks, and there 
bamboo and other half- tropical plants flourish 
luxuriantly in the mild Cornish air. The rockery 
is one of the striking features of the Pencarrow 
garden. It is formed of huge blocks of unquarried 



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CHAP. Ill LIFE AT PENC ARROW 127 

granite brought from the Cornish moorlands, and 
piled up in excellent imitation of the natural tors 
of Dartmoor or the Cheesewring of Caradon Hill. 
In a letter, probably of 1837, Sir William wrote 
to his sister, Mary, to express lus delight at being 
once more at home after the turmoil of politics and 
elections. He says that the calm tranquillity of 
Pencarrow will soon restore him to " indifference 
to all terrestrial things," an unconsdous tribute 
from its master that to him Pencarrow did not 
take rank with things terrestrial. He adds : — 

I am delighted with the rodc-work, which Corbet has 
executed with great slcill and ability. It accurately 
rcaembles nature, so that a stranger would easily fancy it 
reaL The dogs are quite well, Gurth and Brenda 
[mastiff and bloodhound respectively] as fat as pigs. 
The former honoured me by jumping up behind my 
chair at breakfast and putting his arms round my neck. 
Blacky paid me a visit at dinner-time and expressed with 
cairn dignity his satisfiiction at seeing me, at least so I 
interpreted the expression of his countenance. 

The Pencarrow rockery has political and personal 
assodations. When Sir William retired from the 
representation of East Cornwall, he did so because 
the leading Whig gentlemen in the consutuency 
had mthdrawn their support. But the humbler 
class of voters remained futhful, and, when he 
retired, were anxious to do something to show 
thdr continued loyalty and afiection. The build- 



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xx8 SIR;;wILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

ing of the rock-work afforded them the opportunity 
they de^red. Every small farmer and tradesman 
in the neighbourhood who possessed a cart and 
horse lent them for the purpose of transporting 
the blocks of granite from the surrounfUng mocr- 
lands to Pencarrow. 

The collection of rare conifers at Pencarrow is 
&mou3. Kew speaks i%spectftilly of Pencarrow, 
and has been known to ask for seeds and specimens. 
Varieties which can with difficulty resist the 
sterner ur of Middlesex thrive and grow in the 
mild, moist Cornish climate and in the suitable 
habitat selected for them by Sir William, who 
superintended the planting of nearly every tree. 
Sir William's sister, Mrs. Ford, the present owner, 
has been awarded the Knightsian medal by the 
Royal Horticultural Society for the best collection 
of coniferous trees in England. Hie plantations 
comprise almost every hardy specimen of yew, 
fir and cypress. 

There are perfect groves of araucarias of various 
kinds, which have grown to be gracefiil forest trees. 
Some of the rarer species of araucaria were grown 
successfully in the open air at Pencarrow for the 
first time in England ; and the name, monkey 
puzzle, by which the whtde genus are now 
commonly known, was given to them by Sir 
William's friend, Charles Austin. He was looking 
on as one of them was being idanted, and remarked : 



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xii LIFE AT PENCARROW 119 

" That tree would puzzle a monkey." The phrase 
took., and the tree has been known as the monkey 
tree or monkey puzzle ever since. Those whose 
knowledge of araucarias is confined to spedmens 
four or five feet high planted in the front gardens 
of suburban villas, wretched little trees which look 
as if they had been cut out of tinfoil and painted a 
dirty green, should see the avenues of araucarias at 
Pencarrow before they condemn the tree as ugly. 

^r William did his planting, as he did every- 
thing else, very thoroughly and metho<hcaIly. A 
large folio book was kept by him containing the 
name of every tree planted ; the date of planting ; 
its size when planted ; its aver^ growth per year 
in its own country ; the anticipated growth per 
year in England ; and, finally, its actual growth 
year by year at Pencarrow. A glance at this book 
was therefore sufficient to show how each tree was 
fiourishing and whether it was doing as well as, or 
better than, had been expected. 

Careful observation of natural objects of 
constant recurrence, such as rainfall, direction 
and velocity of wind, the effect of temperature on 
plant life, etc., was by no means as common in the 
early part of the nineteenth century as it has 
fflnce become. Sir William's aunt. Miss Caroline 
Molesworth, Ids father's sister, was very interested 
in observations of this kind, and it may have been 
through her that Sir William became a sdentific 



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230 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chat. 

botanisL From 1825, for forty years, Miss 
Caroline Molesworth devoted herself to careful 
observations, duly recorded in her journals, of 
plant life as influenced by the weather. At her 
death in 1872 she left her manuscripts, containing 
over 75,000 distinct observations, to the Metcoro- 
l<^cal Society, in whose library they are known 
as the Cobham Journals. The editing of this 
immense mass of notes was entrusted by the Society 
to Miss Eleanor A. Ormerod, to whom it was a 
labour of several years to formulate the results of 
Miss Molesworth's observations.^ 

Sir William, therefore, probably had an inheritol 
enthusiasm for garden lore. From his earliest 
years his letters to his own family contain constant 
references to his trees, his flowers, and his dc^ 
especially to Brenda, a much-beloved mastifF. He 
writes for instance from London about a bag of 
acorns he is sending down, with directions about 
their planting ; another letter contiuns anxious 
inquiries about his trees ; a third, which describes 
a visit to a famous nursery garden, so well conveys 
his enthusiastic love for flowers and plants that it 
is here quoted at length : — 

LoKDOH, Wednesday [probable date 184a]. 
My dear Mary — Yesterday I went with WewU- 
combc to Lodige's nursery gardens at Haclcney, When 
I entered the gardens I was astonished at the sight. It 
> See Timit, ittb May itto. 



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XII UFE AT PENCARROW 131 

seemed to me I was on the premisei of some half-ruined 
engineer : covered with decayed buildings^ beastly dirty, 
glass stained with perpetual smoke of London, never 
washed, never repaired, but patched in every conceivable 
manner. The outward semblance was most disgusting, 
but what was the interior ? All the riches, all the vegetable 
pride of the tropics was there collected : palms fifty feet 
high ; ferns with their magnificent foliage in thousands ; 
orchidious plants in tens of thousands ; some most beauti- 
ful flowers, filling me with envy and desire of possession. 
It was indeed a new world — its splendour marred, how- 
ever, by a superabundance of beauty and riches ; for there 
were plants enough to have filled a hundred times the 
space i and here they were so closely packed that the 
attention was distracted. The ferns pleased me most, 
especially one from Madeira, which unfortunately Lodige 
said he had never been able to propagate. From the tropics 
we passed to the more temperate climes ; there I was 
much struck by hit beautiful small specimen plants of the 
various firs ; they were complete trees in miniature about 
two feet high, forming beautiful plants for a conservatory. 
From them we went to his collection of camelias ; their 
beauty had begun to diminish, yet still they surpassed 
anything that my imagination could have dreamt of, 
Woollcombe said that Price's coUecrion at Exeter was 
nothing compared to it. For instance, on one plant 
alone, about fifteen feet high, we calculated that there 
were in full flower two thousand of the most beautiful 
camelias. It was indeed a sight worth seeing, and I am 
much obliged to Corbet [the gardener at Pcncarrow] for 
having sent me there. Tell him so, and read him what I 
said, I did not buyany thing, as I did not Icnowwhat to buy. 
— Your affectionate brother, Wm, Molesworth. 



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132 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWO&TH chat. 

In a later letter (1844) to his sister he writes 
about flowers then coming into blossom at 
Pencarrow with the minute particularity of one 
who knows each plant individually. 

Four more flowen of the Nelumbiiun arc coming out. 
Tlic Sarauja is going to be covered with flower. I send 
you a specimen. . . , The Ipomcca Ixcni has flowered 
beautifully in the greenhouse where the creepers grow, 
which, with passion flowers and other creepers, is very gay. 
The Jiqxui hlies, especially the darlc purple ones, are now 
magnificent. 

Friends who stayed with him still speak of the 
hours Sir William spent among the orchids and 
other plants ; and one of the Pencarrow carica- 
tures represents him setring forth garden-wards 
with abnormally thin legs and with the pockets of 
his shooting-jacket stuffed out on either side with 
seeds and other garden stuffs. Ms habit of 
spending his spare time in the hot-houses rather 
than in taking exercise in the open air probably 
explains Charles Austin's vigorous injunction (see 
Chap. XI.) to "mind your health, take exercise 
and live reasonably." 

One of the charms of Pencarrow is its marvel- 
lous rookery. Towards sunset rooks fill the sky, 
arriving in cohorts &om all points of the com[>ass. 
It is said to be their central meeting-place for 
twenty miles round. They literally darken the 
sky. Looking up into the mass of whirling black 



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jtii LIFE AT PENCARROW »3$ 

specks, one and the same simile forces itself on 
every one ; it is exactly like a black snowstorm. 

When Sir William retired from the represcnta^ 
tion of Leeds, he was able to say to his con- 
stituents, with perfect truth, that he withdrew 
" without sorrow to private life." He had heard 
Pencarrow calling "all the time he was plunged 
in political and other business," and what Wakefield 
called " slothful Pencarrow " was indeed a haven of 
repose and tranquillity, and also a place where he 
could work at subjects which interested him and 
called out some of those faculties of his mind 
which were left dormant while he was absorbed 
by political strife in London. In an early letter 
to his mother, written about the middle of his first 
session, he speaks of having breathed comparatively 
pure air while staying with the Grotes at Dulwich, 
and adds, " it fills me with a wish to viwt Corn- 
wall. God knows when that pleasure will be 
accorded me." Now,in 1841,00 longer a member 
of Parliament, with Hobbes to edit, and with 
Pencarrow to live in, his feeling was one of delight 
and relief. He wrote to Mrs. Grote, who had 
gone with her husband to Italy : — 

ttftmhtr 1 84 1. 

I am living a life of the roost tranquil repose : read- 
ing mathernaticB, Studying the undulatory theory of 
light, enjoying my garden when God permits . . . de- 
lighted at being free from the turmoil of politics ; 



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33+ SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chw. 

rejoicing at the annihilation of the Whigs. ... I have 
thus totd you what I have done and am doing. Day 
succeeds to day without other change than is marked l^ 
the successive pages in the boolcs I am reading. What 
I am going to do, Providence alone is acquainted with. 
I am very happy as I am, and have no desire to change 
in any way. What arc you about ? I am sorry to bear 
you have not been very well You had better come and 
pay me a visit. This place, you know, suits your health. 
I need hardly say how delighted we shall be to see you. 
What is Grote about f Give him my best love. — Your 
affectionate, Wm. Molesworth. 

In her reply Mrs. Grote expresses a hope that 
the calm enjoyed by her friend, and the *' harmless 
recreation " which his letter described, would not 
be speedily succeeded by those " fiercer impulses " 
by which she said he had been so often actuated. 
The humorous exchange of personal criticism is 
a marked characteristic of the letters between Sir 
William and Mrs. Grote. She reprores him for 
his sauvagerie ; he retaliates, reproaching both 
the Grotes for leaving him in the lurch in the 
political fights in which they encouraged him to 
engage. In one of her replies to these reproaches 
she says : — 

Got your homily. Deuced dull a>ncern. Daresay 
you are wondrous clever at " Horoscoping " down there 
in your old library } but we worldlings don't take it io 
exactly the same light. We think politics mighty 
gloomy. 



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XII UPE AT PENCARROW 135 

Mrs. Grote encouraged and fostered the sauva- 
gerie she appeared to condemn ; just as people 
are always jdeased to show that a savage dog, fierce 
with all the rest of the world, is gentle to them. 
There is certainly nothing in the contemporary 
references to Sir William Molcsworth by Carlyle, 
Charles Austin, John Mill, Wakefield, and other 
of his intimate friends, to show that he really was 
indifferent to gaining the goodwill and affection of 
those with whom he associated. 

The Grotes stayed at Pencarrow in 1840 and 
agiun in 1 843. After the first visit Sir William 
wrote, i6th December 1840, with cordial apprecia- 
tion to Mrs. Grote, of the pleasure afforded by 
her sojourn in Cornwall. The. letter begins : — 

I hope you have arrived safe and sound in London, 
not the wone for your tour in the West, where you have 
left an imperishable reputation, and won all hearts. I 
saw most of the gentry on Thursday last, when we had 
a public meeting to address the Queen on her having 
blessed the nation with an ofEsfvjng. 

That Mrs. Grote was hot indifferent to such 
compliments is proved by the letter being 
annotated in her writing : " I have left an 
imp ; reputa", etc." Mrs. Grote has given a 
very lively account of the second visit in 1843 
in her Personal Life of George Grote. Charles 
Austin and Monckton Milnes (afterwards Lord 
Houghton) were of the party, and they were 



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136 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chaf. 

recaved by Lady Molesworth and Miss Moles- 
worth as well as by Sir William. Mrs. Grotc 
describes the perpetual flow of talk on all matters, 
from grave to gay, from lively to severe, during 
the fortnight the visit lasted. *' Our host played 
his part to admiration, whilst the ladies found the 
topics n«ther heavy nor tedious, though often 
profound and learned, and the daily (Uimer-hour 
ever found us eager to renew the friendly fray of 
the morning." Sir William Molesworth, she says, 
"brought to the general fund a vast stock of 
knowledge and illustrated his views by resources of 
a character somewhat out of the course of reading 
of the rest of the party." The Grotes quitted 
Cornwall under the impression that Sir William 
had for ever said farewell to politics and would 
devote the rest of his life to science and literature. 
He was still deep in Hobbes, and the Grotes 
thought that the activity of his mind woiJd 
be fiilly satisfied for several years to come by 
the study of the subjects which would need to 
be treated of when he b^an to write the lii^ 
he had so long had in contemplation. It was the 
tendency of the Grotes, though not a peculiarity, 
to judge of others by themselves. Grote was 
now almost wholly absorbed by his tSstory of 
Greece, and " never deviated from his system of 
daily labour " upon it. The l^ends and myths of 
the Athenian gods and the laws of Lycurgus in 



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Ml LIFE AT PENCARROW 137 

Sparta were more to him than the repeal of com 
laws, national education, or the building of a 
British Colonial Empire upon sound foundations. 
The Grotes never really understood their friend, 
nor perceived how his interest in historical 
antiquity only sharpened his deure to grapple 
with the practical problems of his own day. It 
was inevitable mth such a nature as Sir William 
Molesworth's that when he had enjoyed a period 
of tranquil study and rest at Pencarrow, he 
should wish to rest no longer, but to do some- 
thing in the world besides writing books. It 
was not an ignoble amUtion. It must be re- 
membered that it was the " damned feend " who 
tempted the Red Cross Knight with thoughts of 
perpetual rest : — 

Wluit if some little payne tke pitaage have 
That makes fnyle flesh to feare the bitter wave. 
Is not shoit pajne wcU borne, that bringeg long caie, 
And layes the soull to sleepe in quiet grave I 
Slecpc after toyle, port after stormie teas. 
Ease after warre, death after life, does greatly please. 
Firrie ^Mtent, Canto ii. t. ^o. 

This, as Spenser tells us, is the voice of the 
tempter. Few there are who have not heard it. 

But perpetual rest was not an ideal that could 
long please a man like Sir William Molcsworth, 
and quiet study to him was rest. His temper of 
mind about bis studies and his desire to turn them 



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aSS SIR WILLWM MOLESWORTH caw. 

into somechannelofpractical usefulness are apparent 
almost from the banning of his retirement from 
Parliament in June 1841. In a letter dated 
November of the same year he begins with a 
grumble : — 

Nine to ten hours a day I occupy in reading, the rest 
in those ordinary occupations that are required for the 
maintenance of life. What miserable brutes we are to 
be compelled to employ one-balF of our existence in 
keeping ourselves alive. 

He then speaks of his studies, his reading of 
the whole of Comte for a third time, " with the 
determination to understand every general pro- 
position in the first two volumes." He con- 
tinues : — 

I begin to feel sometimes that I am becoming a 
mathematician, and subjects which I formerly found 
difficult now appear easy. In short, I am conscious of 
mental progress, though, alas ! not so rapid a one as I 
could wish. My object, however, is not to be a mathe- 
matician, but to imbue myself with the methods of 
investigating truth so as to be a general thinker. For 
this purpose, and as a discipline of the mind, the vigorous 
study of some specific branch of knowledge is most 
beneficial, provided care be taken at the same time not 
to allow the methods of that particular science to obtain 
an undue preponderance over the intellect. I am well 
aware, better perhaps than most men, of the errors in 
philosophising into which mathematicians are apt to Jail, 
and hope to escape them. In stud)ring mathematics my 



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xn UFE AT PENCARROW 139 

objea is not so much the conclusions arrived at by the 
great mathematicians, as the methadi by which they 
arrived at them j a study therefore, not of mathematics, 
etc., but of the human mind about mathematics. 

Even from the first, then, it may be gathered 
that he looked upon study not as an end in itself, 
but for the sake of the practical uses to which a 
mind trained by study could be turned. 

It was about this time that Behnes the sculptor 
modelled a very successful portrait bust of Sir 
William, Two copies in marble were executed. 
One is now at Pencarrow ; the other was pre- 
sented to the Grotes ; after Mr. and Mrs. Grote 
were both dead, it became the property of Mrs. 
Ford, who presented it in 1898 to the Canadian 
Parliament : it now stands in the library of the 
House of Representatives at Ottawa, where it 
commemorates Sir William Moleswortb's honour- 
able part in the statesmanship which has made the 
Colonial Empire of Great Britain such a source 
of strength to her. 

One of Sir William's possessions at Pencarrow 
was a carved oak pulpit said to have been one 
from which Martin Luther had preached. It 
was placed in one of the libraries, and Sir William 
constantly used it, as a sort of desk, to read and 
write at. The accompanying sketch by his friend 
Mr. R. P. Collier, afterwards Lord Monkswell, 
shows him at work in this pulpit. 



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S40 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chat. 

In 1842 Sir WiUiam lost by death the elder 
of his two brothers, Mr. Arscott Ourry Moles- 
worth. He died at Fareham in Hampshire, aged 
28. Francis Molesworth was at that date dang 
well in New Zealand, and Sir William wrote 
very hopefully of his prospects ; these hopes 
were, however, destined not to be fiilfilkd in 
consequence of the accident already referred to 
which led to his death in 1846. 

In the summer of 1844 ^r William Moles- 
worth was spending some months with his mother 
and sister in London ; at his mother's house and 
elsewhere in society he met a kdy, Mrs. Temple 
West, the widow of a Worcestershire gentleman ; 
he was very much attracted by her from the first, 
and in July of that year she became his wife. 
Surviving friends of Andalusia, Lady Molesworth, 
describe her as having exceedingly gentle, caressing 
manners ; her ambition was to attain the portion 
of a social leader, and her house became the centre 
of the most fashionable society in London. The 
contrast in every respect between her and Mrs. 
Grote was as marked as well could be. There is 
nothing "caressing" about "Got your homily. 
Deuced dull concern," etc., and it is not difEcult 
to understand the charm which his wife's gentle 
manners exercised over Sir William. Lady Moles- 
worth's birth was humble. Before her first 
maniage she had been on the stage. Mrs. 



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xu MARRIAGE 241 

Grote's Radicalism did not imp^r her sense of the 
value of birth, or her conviction that she was her- 
self a member of one of the most andent and 
distinguished of femilies. Unfortunately the two 
ladies r^;arded each other with no friendly eye, 
and Sir William found that he must make his 
choice between his wife and his old friend. He 
naturally chose his wife, and in October 1844 
wrote Mr. Grote a sharp note telling him that 
as Mrs. Grote had been making ill-natured 
remarks about Sir William's vrift, the friendship 
which had existed between them must come to an 
end. Charles Austin tried, in a very charming 
letter, to act the part of a peacemaker. He 
wrote : — 

Now, my dear Mrs. Grote, as I do not 2nd never shall 
intend to break with W. Molesworth, I think it hardly 
fair that you should. It is cooled, inteirupted, if you 
please ; not at an end. ... I undertake to set this 
matter right myself, and you will all be glad to find that 
old and intimate friendships are not so easily broken. It 
is one of the high privileges of such friendships to cen- 
sure, to neglect, to quarrel — without coming to an end. 

It is true that one of my maxims in life is never 
to quarrel, and never to take, however I may give, 
oiFence. And I hope this maxim of my practical philo- 
sophy will be as acceptable to you in time as all the rest, 
to all and each of which I find you successively acceding, 
the reason being, of course, that I am always in the 
right. 



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i 



t4s SIR WILUAM MOLESWORTH chaf. xii 

I will treat you to a new one— never to desire the 
unattainable, n« to regret the inevitable. That is 
worth all the maxims in your books of ethics put 
together, provided you can but act upon it with toler- 
able pertinacity. 

These well-meant efforts had no result. The 
old friends never met again. They were both to 
blame. As Charles Austin said, a friendship like 
theirs ought not to have been extinguished by 
what Mrs. Grote always protested was a misunder- 
standing. Grote and Sir William formally ex- 
changed presentation copies of their respective 
works, but the old familiar friendship was extin- 
guished. 



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CHAPTER XIU 

SOUTHWARK ELECTION, 1 845, AND SIR WILLIAM 
MOLESWORTh's position on ftUESTIOKS OF 
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 

From the General Election of 1841 for the next 
five years the great political question of the day 
was the repeal of the Corn Laws. 

Sir Robert Peel's Conservative majority in 
1 841 had been returned to support Protection, 
but in 1844 there were agns that the Prime 
Minister and the ablest of his following were 
becoming converted to the principles of Free 
Trade. From the beginning of his political life 
Sir William had been in favour of Free Trade, 
including the entire abolition of the Corn Laws. 
He and the Parliamentary group to which he 
belonged, Grote, Hume, Leader, Villiers, Roe- 
buck, etc., had in 1836 formed an Anti-Corn Law 
Association, but from want of really efficient 
practical leadership they made no great way in 



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244 SIR WILUAM MOLESWORTH csat. 

converting the main body even of thdr own party 
to share th«r views. In 1837 Cobden, who was 
not yet in Parliament, made Sir William Moles- 
worth's acquaintance. They met for the first 
time at the Grotes' house. Cobden wrote his 
first impres^ons in his journal : — 

I met at their [the Grotes'] house (which, by the 
way, is the great resort of all that is clever in the 
OppoMtion ranks) Sir W. Molesworth, a youthful, florid- 
looking man of foppish and conceited air, with a pile 
of head at the back (firmness) like a sugar-loaf. I should 
say that a cast of his head would fiirnish one of the most 
singular iUustrations of phrenology. For the rest he is 
not a man of supcnor talents, and let him tay what he 
pleases, there is nothing about him that is democratic 
in principle.^ 

Gibden evidently did not at first sight appre~ 
ciate the mental and moral calibre of his younger 
contemporary, but he was not long in forming 
a juster estimate, for three months later he wrote 
a long letter to Sir William upon a project which 
he had in mind to employ a lecturer to go through 
the North of England towns giving addresses on 
the Ballot, Education, Free Trade, and other 
political and economic topics. He turned for 
help in carrying out this plan to Sir William 
Molesworth, and the letter concludes : — 

I trust you will excuse my thus troubling you at such 
' Mofl«y'i CifitfCMn, toL i. ^ 137. 



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XIII SOUTHWARK ELECTION, 18+5 «+S 

length. I have written to Mr. Grote on the sune 
subject ; it is one with which his lume ii alvnyt asso- 
ciated. He is^ I learn, on the Continent, and to yourself 
I naturally next direct myself for counsel and assistance 
upon this question of questions. 

The force and vigour of the Manchester School 
of Free Traders, aided by the circumstances of 
the time, notably by the disastrous famine in 
Ireland, had turned the pious opinion in ^vour 
of Free Trade held by the philosophic Radicals 
of 1 832 into a burning political question. During 
the greater part of the time when this transforma- 
tion and the gradual conversion of Sir Robert Peel 
and his Ministry were being effected, Sir William 
Molesworth was out of Parhament and devoting 
his time to the edition of Hobbes. In 1 845 he 
determined to re-enter Parliament and take part 
in the final overthrow of the Com Laws, as well 
as to continue his efforts for religious equality, 
national education, and Colonial reform. A 
vacancy took place in the representation of South- 
wark. Sir William Molesworth offered himself 
as the Radical candidate, and was elected on 
13 th September 1845. His address, dated from 
I Lowndes Square, 14th August 1845, S*^^ ^ 
clear summary of his political views, including 
support of the ballot, triennial parliaments, .' 
extension of the suffrage, and abolition of the 
property qualification for members of Parliament. 



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S46 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

He appeals to his votes and conduct during the 
nine years he had sat in Parliament, and adds — 

On every occasion I supported, cither by my «rte» 
or speeches, the principles of Free Trade, and I may 
boast that I was one of the first persons who declared 
themselves, in the House of Commons, for a total rqteal 
of the Corn LawsL 

If elected, he declared his intention to devote 
himself to education, to Colonial reform, to justice 
to Ireland, and to all measures calculated to ex- 
tend commerce by the removal of the fetters of 
R-otection. 

There were peculiar drcumstances connected 
with this election which render it necessary to do 
more than simply state the result of the poll. 
Besides his Conservative opponent, he had also to 
meet with the opposition of a third can^date, a 
Liberal like himself, whose votes on most House 
of Commons questions would be identical with 
his own, and whose opposition was based on 
diflfcrences relating to reUgious equality and re- 
ligious opinions. In the session of 1845 the 
Peel Government had carried a Bill for changing 
the character and enlarging the amount of the 
annual Parliamentary grant to the Roman Catholic 
Training College for priests at Maynooth. Up 
to this time, an annual grant of j£8928, dating 
from Grattan's Parliament of 1795, had been 



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nil SOUTHWARK ELECTION, 1845 »+7 

voted in the Estimates : it was seldom allowed to 
pass without an acrimonious debate. Sir Robert 
Feel in 1845 proposed and carried a Bill to raise 
the annual amount granted to Maynooth to 
^^26,000,' in addition to a gift of one sum of 
j^30,ooo for building purposes ; the Bill also 
provided that the grant hereafter should be 
charged on the Consolidated Fund, and not there- 
fore be subject to the annual vote of the House 
of Commons, This BUI was strongly opposed 
by two sections of opinion in England — the ex- 
treme High Churchmen and the Nonconformists- 
Though they represented two very different and 
even hostile camps, the root of their objection was 
the same — the grant by the State to a Church 
had the effect of making the Church dependent 
on and subject to the State ; and in opposition 
to this High Churchmen and Nonconformists 
joined hands. Mr. Gladstone withdrew from Sir 
Robert Peel's Government on account of the 
Maynooth Bill, because he felt it was inconsistent 
irith the principles he had enunciated in his book 
The State in its Relations with the Church, 
though probably no one but Mr. Gladstone could 
appreciate the difference in principle between the 
smaller vote, in which he had acquiesced, and the 
larger charge on the Consolidated Fund, which he 

I Thi> umnil ptjment mi commnted in 1(69, wben tbe IriiK Cbnrch 
mi diMtUbtklicd, t^ pijiinnit of ■ apiul •nm of £i&^floo. 



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«4S SIR. WILLUM MOLESWORTH ch«p. 

entirely condemned.^ There was a great out- 
burst against Peel's mtasure from the extreme 
Protestant "No Popery " party, whose agitation 
Macaulay referred to as "the bray of Exeter 
Hall " and " the war-whoop of the Orangemen." 
When Sir William presented himself before the 
constituency of Southwark, he was asked his 
opinion on the Maynooth Bill. It would have 
been easy for him to have sheltered himself behind 
the fact that the Bill had been passed when he 
was out of Parliament ; it would have been easy, 
that is to say, if he had been as invertebrate as 
most Parliamentary candidates ; but to him it 
was impossible. He avowed in the most open 
manner that had he been in Parliament be woulc 
have supported Sir Robert Peel's Bill. The 
political dissenters in Southwark violentiy assailec 
him, but this had no other effect than to cause 
him as plainly and clearly as words could do so 
to explain the principles which actuated him on 
this and similar questions. At his speech at the 
nomination on loth September 1S45, he gave tis 
reasons for his approval of the Maynooth Bill. 

The great majority of the Irish nation have adheicd 
to the religion of their forefather and are still Catholics. 

' MiodUy pat thn point witb bii icciatomid clearncu : " It ii cleii to 
QK," he uid in the Home of Commou, "that if we hive no reljgimi 
•craple ibout granticg to thii college 1C9000 f"' one jtu, we aagh: to 
hive no religioiii icniple ibout gnating ,^(i,ooo for is indefinite teou.* 
— MtCMttefi ^Htiti, f, 37}. 



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xm SOUTHWARK ELECTION, 1845 2+9 

The piety of those ancestors liequeathed vast property for 
the maintenance of the Catholic religion, and for the 
instruction of the Catholic priests. That property faaa 
been alienated, not to the uses of the Sutc, nor for the 
benefit of the whole Irish nation, but to the support of a 
religion which seven-eighths of the people utterly dis- 
believe. As some slight compensation, perhaps, for this 
great wrong, the Irish Parliament granted a small sum 
of money, not to maintain the Irish priests, but to educate 
them, to render them lit for the performance of their 
dudes. After the Union of Great Britain and Ireland, 
this grant was considered as a sort of contract ; it wa* 
continued from year to year ; it had become inadequate 
for ita purpose ; and last year it was proposed to make it 
sufficient. Now, I ask, could the House of Commons, 
with propriety, have rejected such a proposal ? Would 
not the refusal of this grant have been considered as 
tantamount to a declaration of hostility towards Ireland i 
Would not that have confirmed the assertion of the 
agitator, that there was no justice to be obtained from 
England? Would not that have lent force to the cry 
for repeal of the Union i I answer, it would. I am 
opposed to the repeal of the Union, no one more so ; but 
then I say, do justice to Ireland^destroy her monster 
Church — the reproach of England — and when you have 
done this, then and not till then, refuse this small grant 
to Maynooth. 

The opposition of the political dissenters to 
Sir William's candidature did not concentrate itself 
solely on his views on the Maynooth Bill. Sir 
William's edition of Hobbes was by this time 
nearly complete, and had been a good deal talked 



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150 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chat. 

of in literary circles. There were probably not a 
dozen voters in Southwark who knew anything 
about Hobbes ; but among the dozen were some 
Nonconformist ministers whose whole political 
energies were concentrated on an attack on the 
union of Church and State. Now, without even 
a distant acquaintance with the fourteen volumes 
of Hobbes' writings, it was not difficult to discover 
that his influence had been exerted in a direction 
the exact contrary to that for which the Non- 
conformists were labouring. Hobbes was in 
politics a strong Tory, and he had given the 
weight of his authority to the supremacy of the 
State over the Church. He had urged that the 
preservation of social order, so recentiy disturbed 
in his time by the Civil War, " must depend on 
the assumption by the civil power of the right to 
meld all sanctions, supernatural as well as natural, 
against the pretensions of any clergy — Catholic, 
Anglican, or Presbyterian — to the exercise of an 
imperium in imperto."^ In a word, Hobbes was 
an Erastian. The electors of Southwark would 
not have understood what " Erastian " meant. 
It was con»dered justifiable by those who ought 
to have known better to use the word " infidel " 
instead ; and to attempt to label Molesworth, as 
the editor of Hobbes, with the same epithet. This 
party was represented in the election by Mr. 



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XIII SOUTHWARK ELECTION, 1845 151 

Edward Miall, who came forward as a second 
Radical candidate. Mr. Miall was well known 
for the vehemence of his opposition to a State 
Church ; he had founded the liberation Sodetjr, 
and was the editor of a weekly newspaper called 
The Nonconformist. This paper displayed as tts 
motto the words, "The dissidence of dissent 
and the Protestantism of the Protestant religion." 
Mr. Miall was a strong Radical outside of theo- 
logical questions. He sympathised with the 
Chartists, advocated manhood suffrage, annual 
parliaments, and payment of members. In com- 
parison with him, Sir William's politics were 
almost Whiggish in their moderation. Sir William 
had only supported household suffrage and triennial 
parliaments ; he had opposed and condemned the 
Chartists ; now his opponent came forward with 
a far more extreme programme, and into the 
bargun endeavoured to label Sir William, as the 
editor of Hobbes, with the name of Infidel. 
Wherever he went in the constituency. Sir William 
was met by the absurd cry of '* No 'Obbes " from 
people who knew as much of Hobbes as they 
knew of Egyptian hieroglyphics. Sir William 
dealt with the matter in a characteristic fashion ; 
he sent a copy of his edition of Hobbes to every 
one of his committee rooms all over the constitu- 
ency, and then challenged those who called Hobbes 
an infidel to discover one word in any of his 



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ijs SIR WILLIAM MOLE5WORTH chap. 

writings in the least degree hostile to Christiamty. 
He and Mr. Miall met face to face on the hustings 
the day before the election. These picturesque 
encounters can never take place now ; the incident 
deserves to be recalled as a specimen of what 
election-speaking was in the old days of the 
hustings and open voting. After a general ex- 
pression of his opinions on free trade, religious 
liberty, the emancipation of the Jews, the grant 
to Maynooth, and a brief reference to the Tory 
candidate, Sir William turned to bis other 
opponent : — 

Now a few words to the friends of Mr, Miall 2nd to 
that gcndeman himself. Many amongst you, I know, 
arc honest and sincere men, for whose character I enter- 
tain unfeigned respect. Between your opinions and mine 
the practical dilfcrcncc has always appeared to me to be 
of small amount. I have therefore from the beginning 
of this contest deeply regretted the division which exists 
between us. I wished that our united forces should do 
battle to the common enemy. I offered to agree to any 
fair compromise. I offered to retire from the field if I 
were the weaker, and to give all the assistance in my 
power to your candidate. Those offers your candidate 
rejected, and the contest went on. Still I hoped that no 
angry feelings would arise between us. I trusted we 
should abstain from personahties towards each other, and 
that this would be a calm contest of reason. In these 
hopes I have been disappointed, and for that disappoint- 
ment I am not to blame. Not one word of disrespect, 
not one syllable of reproach, did I utter against your 



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XIII SOUTHWARK ELECTION, i«4S »53 

candidate until I wat assailed. [A gentlenun on the 
platform here called out " Reverend,"] What ! do you 
call chat a term of reproach P I say that I did not strike 
the first blow. You, Mr. Miall, quitted the high ground 
of argument. You descended into the arena of abuse. 
You accused me of dishonesty on account of my opinions 
with regard to Maynooth. You taxed me with insin- 
cerity because I possessed property in the Church of 
England. You called upon the Dissenters of Southwark 
to shrink with horror from my opinions. You attempted 
Co excite religious animosity and rancour against me. 
Like an inquisitor of old, you presumed to question me 
on my religious belief and to summon me before the 
tribunal of your private judgment. I am glad to meet 
you here to-day face co &ce, Co answer you, to scoff at 
your pretensions, and to bid you defiance. I tell you in 
the name of religious liberty and equality that no man 
has a right to interfere with the religious opinions of 
another man. ... I tell you that in your conduct 
towards me you have been untrue to the great principle 
of religious liberty, you have been without that charity 
which is the essence of religious liberty. You have 
denounced me as the editor of the works of Hobbes of 
Malmesbury. Elcaors, I am proud of that fact. I will 
rest upon it a claim to your support, in opposition to the 
claim of Mr. MialL He is the editor of Thi Noncon- 
Jermitt. I am the editor of Hebbit. To compare the 
two works together would be Uke comparing the vastest 
mountain upon the earth's surface with the smallest mole- 
hill. The works of Hobbes will last more centuries than 
Tk* Nmemformiit will days. The writings of Hobbes 
will last as long as the Anglo-Saxon race and language. 
They will be read age afcer age by che studious among 



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254 SIR WILUAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

the millioiu of our race who will people the two Americas 
and the islands of the Southern Ocean, and who will 
wonder at that ignorant and bigoted herd who dared to 
assail so great a master of thought and language. As one 
of that herd it is your only chance, Mr. Miall, of escaping 
oblivion. . . . You have denounced me as the editCM- of 
an infidel work. I have challenged you, and again 
challenge you to make good your assertions. I faare 
called upon you to point out one infidel passage, cmic 
single sentence derogatory to Christianity in the works of 
Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. Have you or have you 
not read those works ? If you have not read them, what 
right have you to say that they are infidel productions i 
If you have read them, then point out one infidel passage 
in them, one single sentence hostile to Christianity. I 
defy you to it. You have indirectly acknowledged that 
no such passage can be found in these works. Would it 
not have been manly and courageous to have acknow- 
ledged your error, to have said you have never read those 
works, and that you had been misled with regard to 
them i Instead of doing this you have had recourse to 
subterfuge- 
First you have talked about Gibbon. Now tell me, 
acute logician, able rcastmer, what has Gibbon to do with 
Hobbes, or Hobbes with Gibbon ? Two minds more 
dissimilar can hardly be found than the philosopher of 
Malmesbury and the historian of the Roman Empire. 
Would you, the lover of knowledge, not only destroy the 
works of our greatest dialectician, but the writings, 
likewise, of our greatest historian ? Would you consign 
to the same flames Tht Leviathan and Tht DecHne atid 
Falleftht Riman Empire P 

Secondly, you have insinuated that some of Hobbes's 



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XIII SOUTHWARK ELECTION, 1845 255 

opinions lead to infidelity. I ask, is there a single work 
renowned in science, in literature, or in art, against which 
a similar charge has not been brought by some narrow- 
minded bigot ^ It is a well-known historical fact that 
every great discovery in astronomy, in natural history, in 
chemistry, or in any of the physical sciences — that every- 
thing which has made us better acquainted with the 
heavens, with the earth, and with human nature — that 
every acquisition of knowledge which has tended to 
elevate humanity — every attempt at free inquiry, every 
effort to shake off the trammels of authority, has been 
successively attacked by the ignorant and narrow-minded, 
as leading to infidelity. Under this malignant and 
accursed plea some of the greatest spirits of the human 
race have been persecuted and slain. Socrates was 
put to death as an infidel. He who first said there were 
antipodes was burnt. The followers of Copernicus were 
persecuted as disbelievers, and the great Galileo, on 
bended knees, was compelled to assert that the earth was 
immovable. Bacon and Descartes were taxed with 
irreligion ; the doctrines of Locke were said to lead to 
materialism ; Newton was accused of dethroning the 
Deity by the discovery of the law of gravitation i a 
similar charge was made against Franklin for explaining 
the nature of the thunderbolt ; Priestley's library was burnt 
and his person endangered on account of his religious 
opinions ; and in our own days Buckland, Sedgwick, and 
the other geologbts are accused of overturning revelation 
by their discoveries with regard to the past history of the 
earth. In short, in all ages, and amongst all nations, 
infidelity has ever been the war-cry which the base, the 
ignorant, the intolerant, and the canting tribe have raised 
against the great, the noble, and the generous spirits of 



n,gN..(jNGoogle 



ts6 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH cbat. 

the human race. That ciy you, Mr. MiaO, have 
attempted to raise against the works which I have edited. 
I now again solemnly call on you, before the electors of 
Southwaric whom you wish to represent in Parliament, 
to malce good your assertions. If you shrink from the 
attempt, or fail as ful you will, then I accuse you belbre 
your fellow-citizens of having brought this charge against 
mc for base electioneering purposes. I brand you as a 
calumniator, and appeal to the poll of to-morrow. 

" The poll of to-morrow" was a practical reply 
of no uncertain sound to Mr. Miall's attacks : the 
numbers were — 

Sir W. Molesworth . . . 1943 
Jeremiah Pilcher, Esq. . 1182 

Edward Miall, Elsq. . . 352 

The fight in the election of 1845 between Moles- 
worth and Miall Is in many respects a prototype 
of the fight fought out on the platform at Oxf<»Tl 
fifteen years later between Huxley and Bishop 
Wilberforce. It was a fight that is continually 
going on all throt^h the world's history between 
those who fearlessly follow the light of increasing 
knowledge and those who believe that religion is 
inseparably bound up mth ignorance and with 
obstinate resistance to the gradually gained know- 
ledge of the laws which govern the physical 
universe. In 1 862 the fight fought at Oxford two 
years earlier was fought again, but with less 
bitterness, at Cambridge, when Huxley at the 



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xiii ON REUGIOUS LIBERTY 257 

meeting of the British Association defended the 
Darwinian hypothesis in the origin of species. 
Coming away from that meeting, one of the lead- 
ing men in Cambridge said to his companion, with 
pas^onate emotion, " If this doctrine of evolution 
be substantiated, then is Christ risen in vain, and is 
become nothing more than an amiable enthu^ast." 
According to its most earnest adherents religion 
is killed a thousand times ; and yet it does not die. 
Is it not time that the Churches faced the light 
boldly and rec(^ised that the reverent searching 
for truth in the physical universe can never be 
antagonistic to anything but superstition ? The 
essence of real religion is untouched by it, and is, 
we may hope, as full of vital energy in the 
twentieth century as it was in the thirteenth. 

Sir William Molesworth's attitude towards all 
questions bearing on religious liberty was always 
as sincere, outspoken and manly as it was in the 
speech just quoted ; in other speeches bearing on 
the same subject we may miss the fire which 
animated his attack upon Mr. Miall in 1845, but 
we find a quality of more durable value — the sense 
of the imperial importance to such a country as 
England, with vast possessions in every quarter of 
the globe, of the prindples of religious liberty. A 
nation with millions of subjects belonging not to 
one Church, but almost to every great religion in 
the world, — ^Protestant, Roman Catholic, Jewish, 



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ijS SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH cbap. 

Mohammedan, Hindoo, Parsee, Buddhist, — is 
bound to be a nation which matntiuns the priadplcs 
of religious liberty. The sense of the imperial 
necessity for religious liberty made Sir William 
Molesworth a consistent supporter of the abolition 
of university tests, of the emandpation of the 
Jews, and of measures like the grant to Maynooth. 
Though himself what Huxley called " a Protestant 
and something more," he was always ready as a 
landowner to give or let on easy terms plots of 
land for the building of churches and chapels 
representing all religious denominations. His 
recognition of the imperial importance of religious 
liberty is well set forth in the speech he made in 
1847 in support of the candidature of Baron 
Lionel Rothschild for the representation of the 
City of Xjondon in Parliament. Jews were ex- 
cluded &om municipal offices down to 1844 by 
the wording of the oath, which included the 
expression, " on the true faith of a Christian." 
They continued to be excluded from sitting in 
Parliament down to 1857. The tests and Corpo- 
ration Act, which excluded all but Churchmen 
from holding munidpal office by rendering the 
taking of the sacrament obligatory, had been 
repealed in 1828, before Molesworth was in 
Parliament. But he was pre-eminently not one 
of those reformers who confine their enthusiasm 
to chanting psalms of triumph over past victories, 



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xni ON RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 259 

but give no assistance to the assault on abuses 
which are still formidable. In 1847 the friends 
of religious liberty determined to fight the question 
of the exclusion of Jews from Parliament by bring- 
ing forward Jewish candidates for important con- 
stituencies, and Baron Lionel Rothschild* came 
forward for the City of London, well knowing that 
even If elected he would not be able to take his 
seat ; and it was this candidature that Moleswortfa 
supported in the following words : — 

With regard to Baron Rothschild I must make an 
observation. In his election a great principle is practically 
involved, important to the whole of the human race, the 
principle of religious liberty and equality among men. 
If you, the electors of this great city, the commercial 
metropolis of the universe, who number among your 
citizens more wealthy, careful, energetic, and reflecting 
men than any other community on the &ce of the earth, 
if you who transact one-half of the business operations of 
the globe, famed for your prudence and skill, if you select 
as one of the representatives of your vast interests a gentle- 
roan professing the ancient and venerable creed of the 
Jews, you will thereby protest emphatically against all 
bigotry and intolerance. You will proclaim in the most 
impressive manner, to all nations of the earth, civilised 
and uncivilised, your opinion in favour of religious liberty 

> The correiU view m fubioDibte Whig todety ibout Rotliicliilil't 
cuididiture u<l Lord John RnHell coawntiDS to be hit collugoe a probaU]' 
Tepracstcd by Gnnllc, whe beutil]' ooademn* both. Lord Joho'i coadoct 
he call! "very nnvtee," uid Rothichild'i aadiditiire he iiyt u ■*> great 
fiat of impatioence, when he knowi he em't Uke fait leaL" — CrtviUi 
Mmain, chip. niv. ijtii July 1S47. 



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t6o SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chw. 

and equality. You will do an act which will win fm' 
you honour, gratitude and renown from all liberal and 
enlightened men. I cannot understand religious bigotry 
in the present age. I can understand the fierce in- 
tolerance of our rude forefathers, to whose uninformed 
minds the idea of a religion different from their own was 
inconceivable. But I cannot understand those icdings 
among us, who are the sovereigns of a hundred millions 
of human beings whose religions are difierent from our 
own — among us, who are brought by commerce in daily 
and friendly intercourse not only with the Jews of 
Palestine and the Mohammedans of Asia Minor, but 
with the Hindoos of India and the innumerable creeds 
of Eastern Asia, and who find among them equally 
upright, honourable and excellent men. 

By returning Baron Rothschild you will protest 
against any distinction being drawn between your fcQow- 
cidzens on the score of religion. As electors of the most 
important constituency in the empire, you will set an 
example to other constituencies j you will tell them that 
in selecting their representatives they ought to choose the 
best and fittest men without reference to sect or creed. 
And who can deny that a Rothschild is a fitting repre- 
sentative of the bankers and merchant princes of 
England f I say this, not in homage to his wealth, but 
as an advocate of a great principle which is involved in 
this election. 

Sir William Molesworth was unfailingly con- 
usCent and courteous in defending the principle 
of religious equality ; and he gave another notable 
instance of this in the House of Commons a 
month or two before the General Election of 1847. 



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xm ON RELIGIOUS LIBERTY i6i 

The first public grant for education had been made 
in 1833 by the first reformed Parliament. The 
annual sum remained for many years only a miser- 
able j^30,ooo divided between the National and 
British School Associations to be used by them in 
erecting school buildings. In 1847, Lord John 
Russell being Prime Minister, it was decided to 
take a step in advance and to vote the sum of 
j^ 1 00,000 for educational purposes. The pro- 
posal was hwled with satisfaction by all the friends 
of national education in the Hotise of Commons, 
including Sir W. Molesworth. It, however, became 
a matter of public knowledge in the course of a 
long debate, twice adjourned, that it was proposed 
to exclude Roman Catholics from sharing in the 
advantages of the grant. Every one will r^;ret 
that the honoured name of Lord Ashley, after- 
wards Lord Shaftesbury, was associated with this 
piece of intolerance. He made himself the 
medium of communication between the Westeyan 
Methodists and Lord John Russell, and intimated 
on their behalf that if Roman Catholics had any 
share in the grant, the Wesleyans would decline to 
participate in it. Lord John Russell gave way ; 
but his Governmeat had not the courage of their 
intolerance ; they did not dare to exclude Catholics 
as such ; but they proposed to restrict the grant 
to such schools as used the whole of the authorised 
verMon of the Bible in thdr classes, well knowing 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



a6« SIR WILUAM MOLESWORTH ca*r. 

that this would exclude the Catholics. Sr William 
Molesworth exposed the meanness of the proposed 
transaction and fought the question through to a 
successful issue in the House of Commons. On 
22nd April he made a powerful speech in oppoffl- 
tion to the exclusion of Catholics from the grant, 
and gave notice of a resolution. Lord John 
Russell showed ^his discomfiture, but did not give 
way. On 26th April Sir William moved his 
resolution and expressed his conviction that the 
proposal of the Government was a grievous in- 
justice and insult to the Roman Catholics, and that 
they had been sacrificed to please the Wesleyans. 

It is acknowledged [he said] on all hands that ign<vanc» 
is the parent of vice and crime and that education ts the 
remed7. But does vice, does crime cease to be noxious 
to the State when it is the vice and crime of Roman 
Catholics > 

Lord John wanted to postpone the matter and 
to promise to make up the injustice to the Roman 
Catholics at some future time. Sir William re- 
torted, "The time to do justice is now," and 
appealed to the House of Commons to quit them- 
selves like men, to lead and not to follow or be 
dragged at the heels of a popular prejudice in the 
hope of catching a popular vote. The Govern- 
ment eventually gave way and made a distinct 
promise, on the strength of which Sir William 
withdrew his motion, that the minute should be 



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XIII ON REUGIOUS LIBERTY 163 

framed so as to enable the Roman Catholic schools 
to participate in the grant.' Carlyle's remark, " I 
liked the frank manners of the young man," comes 
to mind ; but it is easy to see that these frank 
manners, when used to show up a discreditaUe 
trick, did not make their owner a persona grata 
with the Government. " The time to do justice 
is now " is Molesworth all over and might serve 
as the motto for his shield. No man ever had 
less affinity mth Roman Catholicism than he, but 
no man was more instant in assault upon any 
attempt to put Roman Catholics under disablhties 
and injustice. 



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CHAPTER XIV 

AOAIN IN PARLIAMENT— WORK ON COLONIAL 

REFORM 

At the dinner given to celebrate his first return 
for Southwark in 1 845, Sir William Molcsworth 
showed that he appreciated the immense change 
which the conversion of Peel and his followers 
to Free Trade would produce in the Conservative 
party. They had been returned in 1841 as Pro- 
tectionists. " Since that period, reason, experi- 
ence, and Sir Robert Peel have worked a great 
and beneficial change in the opinions of a large 
portion of the Conservative party . . . they have 
renounced the doctrine of Protection and are gradu- 
ally becoming Free Traders." The remnant who 
still clung to Protection were composed, said Sir 
William, of the "stupidly honest" interspersed 
vnth a few " needy and disappointed adventurers " ; 
these were now "loud in their lamentations and 
ridiculous in their complaints of being deceived. 



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CH. xiT WORK ON COLONIAL REFORM 165 

deserted, and forlorn. _. . ." "As a party op- 
posed to Free Trade, the Conservatives are disunited, 
broken in pieces, and politically defunct." Sir 
William invited his hearers to consider in what 
direction the increased volume of the stream of ' 
Liberalism should be directed, and pointed, first of 
all, to the alarming condition of Ireland owing to 
the failure of the potato crops ; from this to the 
importance of emigration .was but a short step 
which brought him back to the subject to which 
he had given the best of his strength when he had 
been formerly in Parliament — the value and im- 
portance to Great Briton of her Colonies and the 
necesnty of granting to them responsible govern- 
ment. It is true that in this speech he, for the 
first time, pays tribute, as it were, to the then 
triumphant Manchester School, and says he does 
not value colonies as a means of extending the 
British Empire, but for the influence they will 
have in developing commerce and increasing 
wealth ; but having thus paid his toll he goes 
back to his old position and sings a triumphant 
chant for England over the seas. There is more 
of Mr. Rudyard Kipling than of Cobden in the 
following : — 

We have planted colonics in every portion of the 
globe ; men of our race are rapidly spreading themselves 
over the vast nwthern continent of America, are menacing 
the Spanish colonies oF Central America, and already 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



z66 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

grasp in their inuginadon the provinces of the south. 
During the last half-century the previously unknown 
lands of the southern hemisphere have been invaded by 
Englishmen ; flourishing conununities arc springing up 
in Australasia ; emigrants are settled on the shores of 
New Zealand, and at no remote period an Anglo-Saxon 
people will rule as sovereigns throughout the islands of 
the Southern Sea. 

Then he urges that though infant a>Ionies 
require care and pr&tection from the mother 
country, yet free representative institutions should 
be granted to them at the earliest possible moment, 
and he adds : 

Gentlemen, Ei^land is indebted for the position she 
now holds amongst the nations of the eaith to her free 
institutions i to her ships, colonies, and commerce ; and 
by these means, and with unfettered trade, she will long 
be able to maintain that position. 

This speech was an indication that his course 
in Parliament after 1845 would be animated by 
the same principles which he had maintained there 
from 1832 to 1841, and that his chief enei^es 
would be directed to Colonial subjects. To 
represent, as some have done, that his character 
changed, or that his ambitions were directed to 
less worthy ends after his return to puWic life 
in 1845, is not corroborated either by speech or 
action. His character mellowed with advancing 
years and wider experience, but it was singularly 



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XIV WORK ON COLONIAL REFORM 467 

consistent from the beginning to the end of his 
life. When he re-entered Parliament, he pur- 
sued the same objects for which he had always 
worked — the reform of representation, the ballot, 
the spread of national education and religious 
eqtiality, the abolition of transportation, and, 
above all, the reform of the relations between 
Great Britun and her Colonies, and the granting 
to the Colonies, as soon as they were fit for it, 
of representative institutions, and a complete 
control over all their own local affairs. He 
saw at once that it was necessary in drafting 
Colonial constitutions to draw a distinction 
between Imperial and local affairs. This distinc- 
tion, which Mr. Gladstone declared to be " beyond 
the wit of man," when the relation of Ireland to 
the rest of the United Kingdom was under 
discusMOn, presented no insuperable difficulty as 
r^ards the Colonies. The method advocated by 
Molesworth was that the Imperial authority should 
strictly define and enumerate, after inquiry by a 
Royal Commission, the subjects which should 
properly be under Imperial control, and that 
everything else relating to the Colonies should 
be regulated by the Colonial I^islatures. Over 
and over again, as the schemes drafted by the 
Colonial Office for conferring constitutional 
government on the various Colonies were brought 
before the House of Commons, Molesworth 



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268 SIR WILUAM MOLESWORTH ch*p. 

contended with unanswerable logic, and with a 
powerful marshalling of the more important facts 
of the «tuation, that the true policy fen- the 
mother country to pursue was to make the 
Colonial L^slatures really representative in the 
fullest sense of the term. The plan then favoured 
by the Colonial OfHce, and cmbocUed in the 
Government Bilb of 1850, was to allow to each 
colony, therein dealt with, a single Chamber only, 
and to provide that the Crown should nominate 
one-third of its members. Against this scheme, 
and in favour of giving each colony two Chambers, 
both representative, but the one reflecting more 
fully than the other the Conservative elements 
of society, Sr William Molesworth constantly 
and energetically devoted indefatigable and eventu- 
ally successful labour. He was entirely opposed 
to a nominated element in a so-called representative 
Chamber, and pointed out what it would be if the 
Government of the day were able to nominate 220 
members of the House of Commons. He said 
very justly that it would be worse than creating 
1 10 Gattons and Old Sarums. 

It was more through him than through any 
other man that the House of Commons and the 
country were educated to adopt as the rule of the 
Colonial policy of Great Britwn that all questions 
which affect exclusively the local interests of a 
colony possessing representative institutions should 



n,gN..(JNGOOglC 



XIV WORK ON COLONIAL REFORM 169 

be dealt inth by its local l^slature. If this rule 
were frankly accepted, we should have, as he 
constantly urged, the elements of a contented and 
loyal Colonial empire. The old plan of irre- 
sponsible government by the Colonial OiHce 
was really nothing more than tyranny, tempered 
by insurrection and threats of insurrection- 
With remarkable sagacity he discerned, not- 
withstanding the blunders that had strained 
them almost to breaking-point, how strong were 
the bonds which united the Colonies to the mother 
country. In a speech in the House of Commons 
in May 18 50, on the Bill to confer self-govern- 
ment on South Australia and Van Diemen's Land, 
he draws a sketch of what our Colonies ought to 
be, and would become if they were not misgoverned 
into permanent alienation, "a system of States 
clustered round the central hereditary monarchy 
of England.*' Again in April 185 1 on a motion 
for the reduction of Colonial Expenditure he said 
that if the Colonies were governed as they ought 
to be, he was certain "they would gladly and 
willingly come to the aid of the mother country 
in anyjust and necessary war." He never under- 
estimated the strength of the ties of a common 
descent, a common language, and common political 
ideals and objects. His constant argument was : 
Sweep away the uncontrolled power of the Colonial 
Office " government by the miMnformed with re- 



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«7o SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chaf. 

sponsilHlity to the ignorant " : substitute for it com- 
plete self-government in all local afi^rs, and the 
colonies *' will be bound to Great Britain by the 
strong ties of race, language, interest and afltction." 
I am informed by Lord Thring that in 1850, 
when the Government Colonial Bills came on, Sir 
William Molesworth sought lus assistance as a 
lawyer in drafting amendments to the Government 
measures. Lord (then Mr. Henry) Thring had 
made a special study of the constitution of the 
United States, with its elaborate difFerendation 
between State rights and Federal rights. The 
statesman and the lawyer, between them, iramed 
a complete scheme for the government of the 
Gilonies, based on the American modeL It was 
submitted, imsuccessfially, by Sir William to the 
House of Commons, in the form of amend- 
ments to the Government Bills : it was also" printed 
and circulated as an independent measure. Sar 
William's speeches in moving his amendments 
made a very great impression on the House of 
Commons ; and it is noteworthy that although 
he carried none of them, subsequent changes in 
Colonial constitutions have been almost uniformly 
on the lines advocated by him. One change 
which he advocated has not yet been brought 
about, but it is approaching the region of practical 
politics, viz. the representation of the Colonies in 
the Imperial Parliament. Lord Thring says that 



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XIV WORK ON COLONIAL REFORM 271 

Sir William, then many years in Parliament, and 
on the eve of becoming a Cabinet Minister, came 
to him, a young and briefless barrister, and virtu- 
ally made himself a pupil. He came to the 
chamber in Lincoln's Inn daily for weeks, and 
gave the most earnest and unremitting labour to 
make himself master of the l^al aspects of the 
problem he desired to solve. 

The prindples of Colonial self-government are 
almost universally accepted now ; but in the 
forties and early fifties they needed no small 
power of heart and intellect for their clear and 
unfaltering enimciation. Molesworth's invaluable 
services in creating the present Colonial policy of 
Great Britun and placing it upon a permanent 
foundation have been acknowledged by the most 
distinguished of his contemporaries. Mr. firight, 
writing to his friend Cobden soon after Moles- 
worth's death, pointed to the great revolution 
in opinion on Colonial questions which he had 
brought about. 

During the comparatively short period since we 
entered public life [Mr. Bright wrote in April 1857], 
see what has been done. . . . The statesmen of the 
day now agree to repudiate as folly what, twenty years 
ago, they accepted as wisdom. Look at our Colonial 
policy. Through the labours of Molesworth, Roebuck, 
and Hume, more recently supported by us and by 
Gladstone, every article in the creed which directed 



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27' SIR WILLUM MOLBSWORTH cbap. 

our Colonial policy lias been abandtmcd, and now men 
actually abbor the notion of undertaking the govemment 
of the Colonies j on the contiary, they give to every 
Colony which asks for it, a constitution as democntic as 
that which exists in the United States.' 

Mr. Gladstone also has left a record of what, in 
his opinion, the Colonial policy of this country 
owed to Sir William Molcsworth. %)eaking at 
Chester in Norember 1S55 about a month after 
Molesworth's death, he frankly admitted what he 
himself had learnt from Sir William in matters 
relating to Colonial government, and stated that 
he had been a great benefactor of his country 
by maintaining the true principles of Colonial 
government at a time when the truth on this 
subject was exceedingly unpopular. Full of 
resolution and determination and sir^idarly free 
from party spirit, Mr. Gladstone declared his 
conviction that Sir William Molesworth would long 
be held in honour for his mastery of the facts and 
principles relating to the Colonial Empire and for 
his courage and perseverance in insisting upon them. 

The mistake made by Cobden, Bright, and the 
rest of the Manchester School was in believing 
that the freedom of the Colonies would lead to 
their complete separation from the mother country. 
They underestimated the forces of cohewon which 
bind the Empire together. The most distinguished 

> Mortej, Lift i/CtUim, *aL ii pp. 194, 11)5. 



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xiT WORK ON COLONIAL REFORM 173 

survivors of this school are Mr. Goldwin Smith 
and Mr. John Morley. The former expected 
and wished that Canada should cut herself adrift 
fi^m England and become a part of the United 
States ; the latter, reviewing Sceley's Expansion of 
England, asked the question — 

What is the common bond that is to bring the 
Colonies into a Federal Union ? ... Is it possible 
to suppose that the Canadian lumberman and the 
Australian sheep-farmer will cheerfully become contri- 
butors to a Greater Britain fund f ... Is there any 
reason to suppose that South Africa would contribute 
towards the maintenance of cruisers ? No, we may 
depend upon it that it would be a mandat impiratif on 
every federal delegate not to vote a penny for any war, 
or preparation for war, that might arise fi-om the direct 
or indirect interests of any colony but his own. 

What a contrast these words aiFord to the 
more generous and more statesmanlike forecast of 
the future made in the speeches of Sir William 
Molesworth. 

Sir William was in no sense identified with the 
Manchester School, though he often spoke and 
voted with its representatives. In his speeches he 
frequently referred to those to whom he looked as 
master minds. They were not Bright or Cobden ; 
still less Roebuck or Hume ; but Charles Buller, 
Wakefield, and Lord Durham. All of these men 
were identified with the policy of uniting the 



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174 SIR WILLIAM MOLKSWORTH chat. 

Colonies mth the Empire by good government 
and free institutions. 

Charles Buller died in 1848 ; cut off, as all his 
friends felt, from a future full of promise, but 
with a record too of work done, and principles 
maintained that have left a lasting mark on the 
history of his country. It is curious how many 
of the men identified with the reform of the 
Colonial policy of Great Britain were cut oiF in 
what ought to have been the prime of life. 
Charles Buller died at the age of forty-two ; Lord 
Durham at forty-eight ; his successor in Canada, 
Lord Sydenham, at forty-two ; and Sir William 
Molesworth at forty-five. 

The death of Buller was a severe loss, both 
personally and politically, to Sir WiUiam Moles- 
worth. In an important speech in the House 
of Commons, on 25th June 1849, nio^g fo*" * 
Royal Commission to inquire into the administra- 
tion of the Colonies, Sir William referred to the 
friend whom he had lost. He quoted Charles 
Buller's well-known attack upon the then existing 
Colonial Office system :— 

It has all the faults of an essentially arbitrary govern- 
ment, in the hands of persons who have little personal 
interest in the welfare of those over whom they rule ; 
who reside at a distance from them j who never have 
ocular experience of their condition j who are obliged 
to trust to second-hand and one-sided information, and 



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Tiv WORK ON COLONIAL REFORM a?; 

who are exposed to the operation of all those sinister 
influences which prevail wherever publicity and freedom 
are not established. . . . Such power is exercised in the 
huhy manner in which arbitrary, secret, and irresponsible 
power must be exercised over distant communities. It is 
exercised with great ignorance of the real condition and 
feelings of the people subjected to it ; it is exercised with 
that presumption, and at the same time, in that spirit of 
mere routine, which are the inherent vices of bureau- 
cratic rule ; it is exercised in a mischievous subordination 
to intrigues and cliques at home, and intrigues and cliques 
in the Colonies. And its results arc a system of constant 
procrastination and vacillation, which occasion heart- 
breaking injustice to individuals, and continual dis- 
order in the communities subjected to it. These are 
the results of the present system of Colonial government, 
and must be the results of every system which subjects 
the internal ai&irs of a people to the will of a distant 
authority not responsible to anybody. 

These [continued Sir William in his speech] were 
the words of my late friend, Mr. Charles Buller. They 
expressed his deliberate and unchanged convictions, and 
arc deserving of the utmost respect : for no one had more 
carefully or more profoundly studied Colonial questions, 
no one had brought greater talents to bear on those 
questions, no one was more anxious for the well-being 
of the Colonies, no one was better quahfied as a states- 
man to govern the Colonies ; and those who knew him 
well, and loved him, did fondly hope that the time would 
come when he would be placed in a position to be a 
beneiactor to the Colonics, and to make a thorough 
reform of the Colonial system of the British Empire. 
But, alas ! Providence has willed it otherwise. 



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t7« SIR WILUAM MOLESWORTH ch*f. 

The work which Molesworth and Buller had 
pursued together was now to fall, as far as the 
House of Conunons was concerned, on Moles- 
worth alone. He never let it drop until death 
put an end to his labours. In the speech just 
quoted, he shows, how even in those Colonies 
(Canada after 1838 excepted) which had nomin- 
ally representative government, the representation 
was a sham, because, by the existence of a l^is- 
latire assembly composed of Colonial Office 
nominees, the non- representative council could 
reject or disallow every measure passed by the 
representative assembly. The result was an in- 
tensity of party hatred and rancour, culminating 
from time to time in a deadlock, caused by the 
refusal of the representative assembly to pass the 
votes in supply ; then would follow rebelhon, or 
threats of rebellion, and military force was 
frequently required for the msuntenance of order. 
In the end, as the result of all this disaster and 
muddle, the patient and long-suilering British 
taxpayer had to pay the bill. The rhyme had not 
then been invented ; if it had. Sir William Moles- 
worth must have quoted it — it is too appoute to 
have been n^lected — 

Who p»y» the piper ? 
I, Mid John Bull, 
Whoever pUyi the fool, 
I p*j the piper. 



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xi» WORK ON COLONIAL REFORM 177 

Sir William Molesworth pointed out the 
absolute hopelessness of the old Colonial Office 
system of government. It was the system, rather 
than the persons who attempted to carry it out, 
which he attacked. 

The fault is in the system. The wonder to mc is, 
not that the system works ill — not that it produces 
discontent and complaint — but that it works no wone 
than it docs. Consider, sir, for one moment, the nature 
of its working machinery. To govern our forty-three 
colonies, scattered over the face of the globe, inhabited 
by men differing in race, language and religion, with 
various institutions, strange laws, and unknown customs 
— the suff of the Colonial Office consists only of five 
superior and twenty-three inferior functionaries — making 
in all twenty-eight persons for the government of forty- 
three colonies. 

And he continues, drawing a humorous pic- 
ture of the jack-of-all-trades, the Secretary of 
State, who is supposed to be equally at home in 
the management of the finance, religions and 
economics of his forty-three dominions, to show 
that the average duration of time during which a 
Secretary of State remains at the &>lonial Office is 
from eighteen months to two years, and asks if 
there is any reason to be astonished that the brain 
<rf' the unfortunate man is in a perpetual whirl or 
wild dream, and that blundering, vacillation and 
procrastination characterised the administration of 
the Colonial Office. 



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178 SIR WILUAM MOLESWORTH ciur. 

Molesworth was unsuccessful in carrying his 
motion (House of Commons, 25th June 1849) 
for the appointment of a Royal CommisMon ' to 
inquire into the administration of the Colonies. 
But his speech produced a very con^derable im- 
pression upon the House, and is a mine of care- 
fully verified information used to illustrate and 
enforce his argiunents. Every speech he made 
rused his portion in the House as an authority 
on Colonial subjects. 

The subject of Transportation comes up again 
and again in these House of Commons speeches 
between 1846 and 1851. Its maintenance was 
an illustration of the want of wisdom and good 
faith displayed by the Colonial Office system of 
government. The grievance of the Colonies still 
used as convict stations was very great. Colonial 
Office ideas of colonisation consisted almost ex- 
clusively in shovelling out of England its convicts 
and paupers ; and to the communities formed 
under these overwhelming disadvantages, free 
representative institutions were for a long period 
withheld on the ground that they were too de- 
graded for self-government. Convict emigration 
checked the development of true colonisation. 
Respectable families declined to transfer them- 
selves to localities where the general level of 

' Aaumg the uuno iPfgerted by Malawartli h memben of thii Com- 
miuioii were thoM of Mr. GladtlDne lud Mr. John Stoirt Mill. 



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XIV WORK ON COLONIAL REFORM 279 

morality was so incredibly low as it had become 
in the transportation colonies. Transportation 
and the absence of free representative institutions 
acted upon each other in a vicious circle, and 
they both united to divert the stream of the best 
kind of emigrants from the British colonies. An 
Englishman, as Sir William pointed out, emigrat- 
ing to the United States, carried with him the 
Englishman's laws, tights and hberties ; but if he 
emigrated to the colonies of his own country, he 
lost the most precious of his liberties — the right 
of self-government — and might be forced, in 
consequence of the transportation system, into 
association with the lowest and most degraded of 
the refuse of the old country. The tUscontent, 
unrest and threats of rebellion in the Colonies 
were so perpetual, that large classes of intelligent 
politicians at home were beginning to ask, Is it 
worth while to ret^n the connection? and to 
answer the question in the n^ative. This was a 
counsel of despair ag^nst which Sir William 
Molesworth enei^etically protested. He said, 
referring particularly to the granting of self- 
government, as the solution of the transportation 
question and other Oalonial problems : — 

I am convinced that upon the practical settlement of 
these questions the maintenance of our Colonial Empire 
mainly depends, I believe that the stability of that 
empire is in imminent danger from their non-scttlementi 



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iSo SIR WILLrAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

first, in consc(]uence of the Colonial discontent engendered 
thereby ; secondly, in consequence of the opinion, which 
I am sorry to say is thence gaining ground in this 
country, that these Oilonial questions are insoluble 
therefore that good Colonial government is impossible 
therefore that the Colonies are nuisances and burdens 
and therefore the fewer they are in number, and the 
sooner they are got rid of, the better. I lament the 
growth of these opinions : but I am suisfied they will 
spread and acquire strength in proportion as the settle 
ment of the questions ra which I have referred is 
delayed.* 

As early as 1 842, during the Colonial Secretary- 
ship of Lord Stanley, a beginning had been made 
in granting representative institutions in the 
Australian colonies, by an Act which created for 
New South Wales a single legislative chamber, 
two-thirds elected and one-third nominated by the 
Crown. The Act of 1 8 jo, introduced by Lord 
John Russell in the House of Commons for the 
better government of the Australian colonies, was 
of a similar character, and speaking generally, the 
passing of this Act dates the beginning of the era 
of self-government in Australia. Earl Grey was 
the real author of the Bill ; it gave rise to a great 
Parliamentary fight, and was, as has been already 
seen, severely criticised by Sir William Molesworth, 

* Speech in Hook of Commont, April 1S50, moTuig id unendineDt in 
Committee on the Bill lor gnnliiig Mlf-gownunait to Vin Diemen^ Lud 
■od Sonth Aoitntia. 



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XIV WORK ON COLONIAL REFORM «8i 

on the ground that it did not go far enough in a 
democratic direction. He gave his voice and 
Lniluence for abandoning the principle of nomina- 
tion and giving to each colony two chambers, both 
elective. But the Government scheme, with many 
defects, had this great merit : it afforded machinery 
for the modification of the Colonial constitutions 
according to the wishes of each colony. The 
original scheme was therefore promptly modified 
in nearly all the Colonies, and generally in the 
direction advocated by Sir William. The 
modified constitution of most of the Colonies dates 
from 1855 ; the Act of 1850 proving not much 
more than a basis for discussion. The present 
year (1901) will probably see further develop- 
ments in the direction of making the Legislative 
Councils of the Australian colonies elective. The 
views on Colonial policy set forth by Sir William 
Molesworth have recently been justified by the 
logic of great events — the passing of the Act for 
the federation of the Australian colonies, and the 
outburst of loyal affection for the Empire which 
brought the sons of Great Britain from every 
colony, shoulder to shoulder on the battlefields of 
South Africa. 



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CHAPTER XV 

THE LAST OF TRANSPORTATION 

In 1849 Lxird John Russell, as Prime Minister, 
thought fit to accuse Molesworth, most unjustly, 
of a wish to get rid of the Colonial Empire of 
Great Britain. Molesworth had no difficulty in 
repudiating the charge. 

The noble lord £he said] haddescribcd the Colonial 
Empire as a glorious inheritance which wc had recrived 
from our ancestors, and declared that he was determined 
at all rislu to maintain it for ever intact. Now, I ask 
him how do we treat that precious inheritance? By 
transportation we stock it with convicts ; we convert it 
into the moral dung-heap of Great Britain;' and we 
tell our colonists that thieves and folons are fit to be their 

' Tbii vehemence of eipeMi'do i* ptrdoniblt when it it recalled tbtt 1 
ColonUl Secretary bad compUecDtly admined tliat there wu a point at 
which 1 colon)! ihoold not be called npon to receive anjr addition to ita 
convict popalation. Lord Hobart hid iaid, " If yon continoally aend thicvca 
to one place, it muit in time be lupenatDrated, Sydney now, I tbink, ii 
completely •■tnrated. We mnit let it real and pnrifjF for 1 few yean, tUI it 
begiiu agiia to be in 1 conditioo to receive ' (aee Egotoa'a Brkhi QimMt 
F^,ty, p. i6*). 



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cH. XV THE LAST OF TRANSPORTATION tij 

associates. Is this the mode and manner to inspire the 
inhabitants of our colonies with those feelings of aJFecdon 
and cstecni for the mother country, without which our 
Colonial Empire must speedily crumble in the dust, not- 
withstanding our numerous garrisons ? ... If the noble 
lord be sincere and earnest, as I am, in the wish to main- 
tain that empire intact, and hand it down great and 
prosperous to posterity, he will cordially unite with me 
in the effort to put an end to convict emigration. I 
maintain that we have no moral right to relieve ourselves 
of our criminals at the expense of the Colonies, and that the 
desire to make a scapeg<»t of the Colonies, by whomso- 
ever entertained ... is a mean and sellish feeling, of 
which, as citizens of this great Empire, we ought to be 
ashamed. 

In 1849-50 an event occurred which threw a 
very angular light on the transportation system. 
A circular had been issued from the Colonial 
Office in 1 848, statii^ that certain specified colonies, 
including the Cape of Good Hope, and the 
Australian colonies, with the exception of Van 
Diemen's Land, should not be forced to receive 
convicts without the consent of their respective 
inhabitants. Notwithstanding this circular, a ship- 
load of convicts was despatched in 1 849 on board 
the Neptune to the Cape. These convicts had been 
made into ticket -of- leave men ; and it was the 
view of the Colonial Office that calling them by 
another name would relieve the Imperial Govern- 
ment of the necessity of observing the promise 



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18+ SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chaf. 

made by the circular of the previous year. But 
" a rose by any other name would smell as sweet," 
and a convict did not become a more welcome 
visitor by being called a ticket-of-Ieave man. 
Immediately on hearing of the anticipated embarka- 
tion of this ship, the white inhabitants of Cape 
Colony, men and women, entered an energetic 
protest against it. They felt that a lat^ number 
of European convicts let loc»e, as they eventually 
would be, among the native races of Cape Colony, 
would produce a state of things perfectly intoler- 
able to the self-respecting European inhabitants. 
According to the ancient tradition of the Colonial 
Office, protest and petition were unheeded, and the 
ship Neptune was despatched with convicts on 
board, and in due course she anchored in Simon's 
Bay. The inhabitants of Cape Town and the 
neighbourhood had, however, in anticipation of her 
arrival, bound themselves tt^ether ndther to allow 
the convicts to land, nor to supply the Neptune 
with food or provi^ons of any sort as long as she 
remained in Simon's Bay. For five months the 
contest lasted ; the Neptune obtained scanty 
supplies of food from ships of war, but none from 
the inhabitants of Cape Colony. The Neptune 
was, in fact, severely boycotted, and in the end the 
Colonists won the victory, and tiie convict ship 
received orders from home to proceed to Van 
Diemen's Land. Such an event was a useful 



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mr THE LAST OF TRANSPORTATION «8s 

weapon in the bands of a skilful opponent of 
transportation, and ^r WilUam Molesworth did 
not &il to appreciate its value. 

He had been working and arguing against 
transportation ever since tbe House of Commons 
Committee of 1838, of which he bad been chair- 
man ; and he now felt that the blunders of the 
Colonial Office had delivered his enemy into his 
hands. The Cape colonists had successfully de- 
fended themselves agiunst the landing of convicts, 
and Sir William brought forward in the House of 
Commons, on 20th May 1851, an overwhelming 
case for the complete and immediate abandonment 
of transportation to Van Diemen's Land. His 
case was as follows : — 

On 20th July I S47, Sir William Denison, then 
Governor of Van Diemen's Land, had announced 
in the Legislative Council of the Colony, in the 
name of the Queen and of the Home Government, 
that the wishes of the colonists would be complied 
with and transportation abolished. Notwith- 
standing the promise thus formally and officially 
made, no steps towards its fulfilment had then, 
four years later, been made. Sir William pre- 
sented petitions signed by every section of the 
community cluming the fulfilment of the Imperial 
promise ; the free labourers of the colony threat- 
ened to leave if transportation were continued, and 
to allow the island to become one huge den of 



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286 SIR WILUAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

thieves and felons. A separate petition was 
addressed direct to the Queen, as the mother of 
many children, by fathers and mothers in the 
colony, praying Her Majesty to save thor children 
from the horrid corruption and pollution to which 
they were exposed by being surrounded by con- 
victs. Sir William referred to the fact that Lord 
John Russell had been a member of the House of 
Commons Committee on Transportation in 1838, 
and was therefore well aware of the frightful 
abominations following the transportation system. 
He thanked Lord John Russell for turning his 
knowledge to good account by having, in May 
1 840, revoked the Order in Council which made 
New South Wales a penal colony. Unfortunately, 
however. Lord John Russell's tenure of the 
Colonial Office was very short. He was succeeded 
in 1841 by Lord Stanley (afterwards the 14th 
Earl of Derby — the Rupert of Debate). *' Lord 
Stanley utterly disregarded every one of the 
recommendadons of the Transportation Committee 
with r^ard to Van Diemen's Land." Convicts 
were poured into the unfortunate colony during 
the five years during which Lord Stanley was 
Colonial Secretary, at an averse rate of 4200 a 
year. Tliis was a colony the whole population of 
which was, in 1837, only 42,800. Nearly all the 
21,000 convicts transported by Lord Derby to 
Van Diemen's Land in the period named were 



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x» THE LAST OF TRANSPORTATION tSy 

men. The consequence of this congregation of 
convicts and the vast disproportion between the 
sexes were even worse than the Transportation 
Committee had anticipated. When Mr. Gladstone 
succeeded Lord Stanley as Colonial Secretary in 
December 1845, he caused an inquiry to be insti- 
tuted into the state of the colony. The most 
appalling discoveries were made. Sir James 
Stephen, the Permanent Under-Secretary of the 
Colonial Office, said that the chain-gangs and 
probation parties were " nothing less than schools 
of advanced depravity, by which every remaining 
trace of virtuous habit or sentiment was effaced 
from the mind of the convict." Mr. Gladstone 
caused the governor to be recalled and the trans- 
portation system to be suspended for two years. 
Then he left office (on the Maynooth question) 
July 1 846, and was succeeded as Coloni^ 
Secretary by Lord Grey, an ardent advocate of 
transportation. Sir William Denison, the new 
Governor appointed at the instance of Mr. Glad- 
stone, arrived in the colony at the beginning of 
1847. He found the colony unanimous in con- 
demnation of transportation, and at the opening 
of the Legislative Council on 20th July 1 847 he 
said : — • 

I take the earliest opportunity of laying before you the 
decision of Her Majesty's Government that transportation 
to Van Diemen's Land should not be resumed at the 



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s88 SIR WILXIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

expiration of the two years for which it has already been 
decided that it should be discontinued. 



Great was the joy of the inhabitants of Van 
Diemen's Land on receiving this promise. Letters 
and addresses were sent to Lord Grey thanking 
him for the dcdaon at which the colonists believed 
he had arrived. %r William Denison, in a despatch 
to the Colonial Office, dated August 1 847, informed 
the Home Government that he had announced the 
abolition of transportation to Van Diemen's Land. 
This despatch was received in London on 5th 
February 1848, and acknowledged on 27th April 
of the same year ; the action of the Governor was 
neither censured nor disowned. The Imperial 
authority was therefore pledged up to the hilt to 
carry out the promise which had been made ; but 
this very same despatch announced the intention 
of the Home Government to resume transportation 
to Van Diemen's Land by making it a depot for 
the reception of ticket-of-leave men. The fine 
distinction made by Lord Grey between ticket-of- 
leave men and convicts did not commend itself 
more in Van Diemen's Land than it bad done 
at the Cape. The utmost indignation was felt 
throughout the colony. Vigorous protests were 
made, and the charge of breach of faith was 
vehemently brought forward. A resolution con- 
demning the action of the Home Government was 



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jy THE LAST OF TRANSPORTATION 289 

unanimously passed by the L^islative Council. 
This was followed by a protest addressed to Sir 
W. Denison, and signed by 117 magistrates of 
the colony, and another signed by ministers of 
religion. Public meetings assembled which ex- 
pressed "astonishment, indignation and regret" 
at the breach of faith to which the colony had been 
subjected. An Anti- Transportation League was 
formed, every member of which bound himself not 
to employ any male convict arriving after 1st 
January 1 849, Personal petitions to Her Majesty 
were agreed upon, and immediately received a 
large number of signatures from heads of families, 
male and female. In the midst of the excitement 
caused by this agitation against the Home Govern- 
ment, oil was poured on the flames by the arrival 
of the convict ship Neptune from Simon's Bay 
in April 1850. Cape Colony had successfully 
resisted the landing of convicts, but the colonists 
of Van Icemen's land were apparently believed 
to be made of more pliable material, and the refuse 
of England, denied entrance into Cape Colony, 
was sent on to the unfortunate island. It was an 
insult as well as an injury. The Colonial Office 
circular already referred to increased the exaspera- 
tion which prevailed. Why, it was asked, when 
all the other colonies i?ere ceasing to be made 
convict stations, should Van Diemen's Land receive 
less favourable treatment? The exception of Van 



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£90 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

Diemen's Land was justified by the Colonial Office 
on the plea that it had always been a penal colony, 
although almost a year beibre ttus circular was 
issued, viz. in July 1847, the Governor of Van 
Diemen's Land had promised on behalf of the 
Imperial Government that transportation to that 
colony should cease. This plea that Van Diemen's 
Land should be treated exceptionally on the ground 
that it always had been a penal colony was resented 
as most unjust and tyrannical. 

The colonists [said Sir William Molesworth in the 
House of Commons] argued that the only difference 
between their colony and New South Wales had been 
occasioned by a breach of fiuth on the part of the 
Colonial Office in not fulfilling the promise to abolish 
transportation ; and that if that promise had been ful- 
filled, transportation could not have been renewed 
without a violation of the rule laid down by the Colonial 
Office. The arrival of the Neptune showed the colonists 
how successfully the colony of the Cape had resisted 
an attempt to violate that rule, and gave them ocular 
demonstration of two important facts ; fint, that it 
was the deliberate intention of the Colonial Office to 
make their colony a huge cesspool, in which all the 
criminal filth of the British Empire was to be accumulated j 
secondly, that it was in the power of the people of a colony 
by combination, vigour and self-reliance to defeat the 
intentions of the Colonial Office, and to compel it to 
keep bith. I am convinced that the arrival of the 
Neptuiu will hereafter be a memorable epoch in the 
history of transportation to Van Diemen's Land. 



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XV THE LAST OF TRANSPORTATION 391 

Sir William went on to say that the fact that 
only the year before the Imperial Parliament had 
granted representative institutions to Van Diemen's 
Land only made the recent procedure with regard 
to forcing convicts upon the island ridiculous and 
futile. 

Sir, before I sit down I will put one question to Her 
Majesty's Government. Last year you gave representa- 
tive institutions and self-government to Van Diemen's 
Land. What did you mean by so doing i How did 
you mean that the inhabitants of that colony should 
govern themselves i Did you mean that they should 
govern themselves in the manner which they thinlc best 
for their interests, or in the manner which you think best 
for the interests of this country i Now, on the subject 
of transportation there is a conflict between the alleged 
interests of this country and those of Van Diemen's 
Land. You chink that it is for your interest to tfansport 
your convicts to Van Diemen's Land, and to cast forth 
your criminal filth on Van Diemen's Land. The in- 
habitants of that colony think that it is for their interest 
not to receive your felons and not to continue to be your 
cesspool. Which of these two interests ought the 
representatives of Van Diemen's Land to prefer ? Ought 
they to prefer the interests of their constituents or of 
your constituents ? They will without doubt prefer the 
interests of their own constituents. They are bound to 
do so by every recognised principle of representative 
government. They will do so. I believe not one man 
will be elected a member of the House of Assembly in 
Van Diemen's Land who is not pledged to resist trans- 



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191 SIR WILLIAM HOLESWORTH chap. 

portation by every means in his power. What will you 
do i Discontinue transportation, or repeal the constitu- 
tion of Van Diemen's Land ? You must do one of these 
two things. For free institutions and transportationi 
cannot coexist in Van Diemen's Land as long as the 
feelings of the inhabitants of that colony are such as they 
are at present. 

He then reiterated his long-standing opposition, 
root and branch, to transportation wherever 
practised ; but the question before the House was 
not, he observed, of a general character, but was 
confined to the continuance of transportation in 
Van Diemen's Land. 

If the House resolved upon continuing it, then I say 
you have committed an act of insanity in giving to the 
inhabitants of Van Diemen's Land free institutions and 
arming them with the best weapons to oppose your wilL 
I call upon you to keep (aith with them and to extend 
to them the rule that no convicts shall be transported 
to them without their consent. 

He warns the House that an Australian league 
was being formed against transportation, and that 
further persistence in enforcing it would perma- 
nently alienate the Colonies from us, and con- 
cluded : — 

I exhort and warn the House to suiFcr no delay in this 
matter if it hold dear our Australian dependencies. For 
many years I have taken the deepest interest in the afiain 
of these colonies. I am convinced they are amongst the 
most valuable of our Colonial possessions, the priceless 



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XV THE LAST OF TRANSPORTATION 293 

jewel in the diadem of our Colonial Empire. I believe 
that they can easily be retained, with a little common 
sense and judgment on our part ; that welt governed 
they would cost us nothing, but oiFer us daily improving 
markets for our industry, fields for the employment of 
our labour and capital, and happy homes for our suiplus 
population ; that the Australian Empire is in danger from 
the continuance of transportation to Van Diemen's Land, 
and I therefore move that an address be presented to Her 
Majesty praying for its discontinuance. 

As the current opinion of the day measures 
success, this speech and motion were a fulure, for 
the debate was brought to a premature close by a 
count out. It was, however, very far from a failure 
from a wider pmnt of view. It was the last assault 
of a victorious attack on a wholly vicious penal 
system. Transportation has been called " the bane 
without an antidote, the curse without a blessing." 
This bane, this curse, ag^nst which Sir William 
had continuously fought during every year of his 
Parliamentary life, were now at length overcome. 
Within little more than a year from the date of this 
9[>eech, transportation in Van Diemen's Land had 
c e ased. The date of its abolition was ist January 
1853. The speech from which quotations have been 
made was the last Sir William ever had occasion to 
deliver on the subject of transportation. Van 
Diemen's Land showed its appredation of its 
deliverance, and its desire to blot out the remcm- 



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194 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap, xv 

brance of its nuserable past, by changing its name. 
From 1st January 1855 it took the name of 
Tasmania. Such an unusual stq3, on the part of 
an Anglo-Saxon population, as a change of name, 
marks the intensity of the feeling in the idand 
agunst the convict system. 

Western Australia mtuntained and approved of 
the convict system long after it had been discon- 
tinued in every other Australian colony. This 
colony was without representative institutions until 
1890, and there were other circumstances which 
differentiated its portion. But gradually Western 
Australia fell into line with her sister colonies, 
and the last ship with convicts was despatched 
there in 1867. 



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CHAPTER XVI 

SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH JOINS LORD ABER- 
DEEN'S GOVERNMENT AS FIRST COMMIS- 
SIONER OF WORKS 

On 28th June 1850, in the Don Pacifico debate 
in the House of Commons, Sr Wilham voted 
against Lord Pahnerston's foreign policy. Mrs. 
Austin, writing to Guizot on the debate and its 
results, said : — 

Sir William Molesworth spoke 2nd acted excellently. 
Several men went to ask his advice and what he meant to 
do. He said : " I shall tell no one. I shall vote as my 
own conscience directs, but the responsibility of each 
man's vote must rest with himself." > 

Mrs. Austin's letter must not be taken to mean 
that Molesworth gave a silent vote ; he spoke on 
the third night of the debate, and explained the 
grounds of his opposition to Roebuck's motion in 
defence of Lord Palmerston. Every one knows the 
J^me of that debate and of Lord Palmerston's 

> Tirti GeMral'mt a/ Ei^Hikamtm, 



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196 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

celebrated speech, with the " Civis Romania Sum " 
episode, so often quoted. Sir William repudiated 
the " Civis Romanus Sum " theory, and held that the 
travelling Englishman who ventures into foreign 
lands and among uncivilised peoples must do so at 
his own risk, and must not expect to be sheltered 
by the tegis of Great Britain. In this respect the 
judgment of posterity has been more in accordance 
with the views of Falmerston than with those of 
Moiesworth. Who is there that does not feel that 
it is worth something to be a British subject ? that 
if he is wronged anywhere in the ends of the earth, 
Great Britain will see him righted ? When Great 
Britain acts up to this character, every Briton repays 
the debt he owes his country with love and grati- 
tude, and with his life if need be. When she 
forgets and becomes lazy, and says, ** Wl^t business 
is it of mine ? " then follow shame and disaster, and 
eventually there is a long bill to pay in life, money 
and reputation. A senator of the United States 
once told the story of the Abyssinian Expedition 
of 1868, and how to rescue one Englishman, with 
his secretaries and little band of followers, eight 
persons in all, io,ooo British soldiers were marched 
seven hundred miles under a burning sun, across a 
desert, to the foot of the femous fortress, and the 
man was delivered from his captivity. 

That was a great thing for a great country to do — a 
country that has an eye that can see all across the ocean. 



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x*i LIBERAL FOREIGN POLICY 197 

away up to the mountain heights, and away down to the 
<Iarksonic dungeon, one subject of hers out of her thirty- 
eight millions of people, and then has an arm strong 
enough and long enough to stretch across the same ocean, 
across the same lands, up the same mountain heights, 
down Co the same dungeon, and then lift him out and 
carry him to his own country and friends ! In God's 
name, who would not die for a country that will do that ? 

The House of Gjmmons, in 1850, endorsed 
Palmerston's policy of defending, even at the risk 
of war, the rights of a Portuguese Jew, who 
happened to be a British subject. The numbers in 
the division after a four nights' debate were 310 
to 264. Gladstone, Molesworth and many other 
distinguished men voted in the minority and 
against Palmcrston and the party of which they 
were members ; but a rather curious light is 
thrown on the vote of these two men just named 
by a letter, dated 1851, from Mr. Panizzi to Lord 
Shrewsbury.' Lord Shrewsbury had publicly 
defended the then government of Naples, and 
Panizzi, writing to controvert his views, s^d that 
Gladstone, " as a strong Conservative, Christian 
and gentleman," had assured him (Panizzi) in 
accents of deep religious conviction that the 
government of Naples was the government of 
Hell on Earth ; the details were so horrible and 
indecent that he could not tell them before an 

< Sec Mr. L. Figin'i UJi ofFamm. 



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198 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

assembly of gentlemen. "Another man of un- 
impeachable character, of remarkable talents, of 
opposite political principles, Sir William Moles- 
worth, fully agrees with Mr. Gladstone, and both 
say openly they rejoice at the majority of the 
House of Commons [in the Padfico debate] that 
kept Palmerston in office last summer, when they 
both voted m the minority." 

It was very unlike the stnughtforwardness of 
Molesworth's ordinary character to vote in the 
minority, and yet rejoice that it was a minority. 
Is it possible that he was temporarily under the 
influence of the Manchester School in 1850, with 
their very pronounced views on non-interference 
and peace, and that his speech and vote in the 
Pacifico debate represented the strer^th of this 
influence rather than the natural expression of his 
unbiassed judgment ? This view of his position 
is rather corroborated by Mrs. Austin's account of 
his desire not to influence other members to vote 
with him against the Government. A long- letter 
from Sir William Molesworth to his friend the 
Hon. Charles VilUers, thoi^h not dated, evidently 
belongs to the early part of 1852, as it refers to 
the condition of parties as affected by the dismissal 
of Lord Palmerston consequent on his approval of 
the coup tfetat of Louis Napoleon. He says : — 

You ask my opinion with regard to Johnnie's coup 
d'itat. Senior says chat Lord John has long disapproved 



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XVI UBERAL FOREIGN POLICY 199 

of and wished to upset Palmerston, but was afraid of the 
RadicaJs ; and that Palmerston's absolute approval of the 
conduct of Napoleon, being \ikely to destroy his popu- 
larity with them, afforded the long-wished-for oppor- 
tunity. I blame Palmerston's cx>nducC in this matter for 
the same reason as I have blamed his general policy {iic\ 
namely, for meddling with other people's aifairs. ... I 
think Palmerston was to blame on general grounds for 
expressing any opinion with regard to the eaup d'etat; 
and also as the representative of a constitutional govern- 
ment and a nation whose first principle of political 
morality is respect for law and constitution ; he was 
doubly to blame for going out of his way to express 
unqualified approbation for an act in the highest degree 
illegal and unconstitutional. If Palmerston did this 
without the consent of the Cabinet, or, as some say, in 
direct opposition to the wishes of his colleagues, I am 
not surprised that they got rid of him, and am only sur- 
prised they were not equally touchy before. I expect 
well from Lord Granville, and in these critical times I 
shall feel much less anxiety with our foreign relations 
being managed by a man of sound sense and judgment 
and integrity rather than by a veteran diplomatist skilled 
in intrigue. The only subject of regret is that the 
Foreign Secretary will not be in the House of Commons. 

He goes on to prophesy that Palmerston will 
ultimately join the Protectionist party : " He wants 
a foUowing, and they want a leader whom it 
would not appear ridiculous to themselves to 
follow." He thinks it probable even that 
Gladstone might be brought into this curious 



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300 SIR WILUAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

combination : " Last session Gladstone, I thought, 
sought Protectionist cheers, and he must have 
been much conciliated to Palmerston by the 
official dissemination of his Neapolitan tracts." 

So much for the limbo of unfulfilled prophecy, 
and so little can the keenest observers foretell 
the immediate future. 

When he leaves the realms of prophecy, and 
comes back to what has happened, Sir William's 
remarks might have appeared as part of a lead- 
ing article in yesterday's papers. He dwells on 
the dearability, in a country like ours, with a 
party system, of two well-drilled, well -organised 
political parties in opposition to one another, 
dther of which should be prepared to form a 
Government and take office. In 1851-52 the 
Tory party had been smashed and destroyed by 
the conversion of Peel and his followers to Free 
Trade ; just as the Liberal party of the present 
time was shattered by the conversion of Mr. 
Gladstone and his followers to Home Rule in 
1885. The analogy ends there, for Free Trade 
became an accomplished fact, and in 1852 its 
political and economic success left little room 
for doubt ; while the mass of Englishmen and 
Scotchmen remain as unconvinced as ever that 
the Irish Separatists have solved the enigma of 
Irish unrest. The old Tory party was destroyed 
in 1847, but it carried Free Trade in the process. 



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xn LIBERAL FOREIGN POLICY 301 

The old Liberal party was destroyed in 1 885, but 
accomplished nothing in the process. 

The contrast between Palmerston's position in 
foragn politics and his attitude on domestic reform 
must have been an extreme exasperation to the 
Radicals of 1850. He was constantly lecturing 
foragn sovereigns and peoples on the advantages 
of constitutional government, and ui^ing British 
ambassadors to assume the role of university 
cxtenaon lecturers in order to spread the know- 
ledge of the advantages of representative institu- 
tions in a benighted world ; yet in home politics he 
was the great obstacle in the way of an extension 
of the suffrage and domestic reform. He was a 
Whig of 1832 on the question of Parliamentary 
reform in Great Britain, and could not be induced 
to see that the exact degree of progress made 
twenty years before in the direction of a democratic 
suffrage was not the ultimate goal beyond which 
no reasonable person could wish to travel. A 
Tory at home and a Radical abroad, he was the 
exact antithesis of the school of Cobden and 
Bright, who wished England to withdraw altogether 
from intervention in foreign politics and concen- 
trate herself on questions of domestic reform. 
Molesworth belonged to neither school; he had 
a great sense of the Imperial mission of Great 
Britain in her relation to her Colonies, but he was 
also heartily with Cobden and Bright in desiring 



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joi SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chaf. 

to promote the ballot, the exten^on of the 
suf&age and the other developments of the demo- 
cratic movement at home. Indeed it should 
perhaps be said that on these questions they 
followed him, rather than he them, as he was 
earlier in the field of active politics than they had 
been. 

At the General Election of 1 8 5 2 Sir William was 
once more returned for the borough of Southwark. 
In his speech at the opening of the election on 
I St June, he sud that Free Trade was still the great 
question of the day, and he charactetistically 
referred hts audience to the principles laid down 
by Adam Smith, Mill and Ricardo, rather than 
to the popular political leaders of the anb-corn 
law movement. He warned them not to put too 
much confidence in the "practical man," reminding 
them that Lord Melbourne a few years before had 
declared that a man must be mad who thought it 
was possible to repeal the corn laws. He again 
enundated his belief in the great importance of 
Gilonial self-government, and stated that he 
believed the views on this subject which he had 
so long advocated were gaining ground in the 
House of Commons and among enlightened men 
of all parties. As his consistency on the subject 
of peace was afterwards called in question by 
Bright and Cobden, it is desirable to quote his 
declaration to his constituents upon it. 



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xn GENERAL ELECTION joj 

Next you may ask me, whether I thinlc any consider- 
able reduction can be made in the military establishments 
at home, or that they ought to be increased. Now I am 
ndther an alarmist nor a member of the Peace Society. 
I hate war, but I would rather hght than submit to 
insult, robbery or oppression. Therefore I do not think 
that this great and wealthy empire should be left without 
military and naval forces sufficient to maintain its 
position amongst the European States. On the other 
hand, I do not believe that Louis Napoleon will appear 
one fine morning at the head of his troops in the midst of 
London.' It is not for his interest to go to war, and he 
won't meddle with us if we don't meddle with him. I 
have therefore voted against the Militia Bill — first, 
because I do not believe that there is any necessity for 
an increase of the military forces of this country ; and 
secondly, if there were any such necessity, it would be 
better to increase the standing army, for a militia is a 
force wholly unsuitcd to the present stage of the world's 
civilisation. If we want more soldiers, we had better pay 
for good ones. 

In the same speech he advocated an extension 
of the suiFrage and a redistribution of seats, the 
ballot, the abolition of the property qualification 
for members of Parliament, stating that the wider 
the basis on which the Constitution rests the firmer 
will it be. He also supported national education, 
defended the income-tax, the grant to Maynooth, 
and the general principles of religious toleration. 

Cauud by i belief in the imminence 



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304 SIR WILUAM MOLESWORTH chat. 

This was just at the time when the assumptioii by 
the Roman Catholic Church of religious titles in 
the United Kingdom had led to a strong "no 
Popery " ^itation, and to the passing of the 
Elcclesiastical Titles Act. He wound up his speech 
by a spirited attack on Lord Derby, then Prime 
Minister, the Lord Derby who had reimposed 
transportation upon Australia. 

The name of Lord Derby [said Sir William] is 
inscribed upon the banners of certain candidates as the 
symbol of their political faith. . . . What does it mean ? 
It does not mean the iamous Lord Stanley of the House 
of Commons. He was an eloquent orator, the Rupert 
of debate i ready to carry the Reform Bill at the expense 
of revolution ; hot, zealous, chivalrous, without a 
particle of sutesmanship ; for six years he misgovemcd 
the Colonics ; there is scarcely a Colonial grievance of any 
importance which may not be traced to his mismanage- 
ment ; he produced a rebellion in Canada — may he not 
produce another .' He sowed the seeds of our cosdy wars 
in South Africa; he caused the hideous demoralisation of 
Van Diemen's Land, for he was wrong-headed, obstinate, 
ignorant, rash, reckless and careless of consequences ; 
but on the whole, frank, straightforward and manly. 
This Lord Stanley is not the Lord Derby who appears on 
the hustings of the present day. Who is he ? A Free 
Trader in the towns ; a Protectionist in the counties ; pro- 
Maynooth in Ireland, anti-Maynooth in England and 
Scotland ; saying one thing one day, retracting it the 
next, repeating it the third, equivocating about it the 
fourth. A political jockey, riding a losing horse, hoping 



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XVI ATTACK ON LORD DERBY 305 

to win hj a cross ; a thimUe-rigger, gammoning clowns 
and chaw-bacons with the pea of Protection, which will 
never be found under any one of his thimbles ; a truclcter 
to the bigotry he means to betray; the kadcr of men who 
have no convictions, whose only rule of political conduct 
is success, the end and aim of whose existence are the 
gratification of personal ambition ; men long eager for 
power, surprised at obtaining it, unscrupulous as to the 
means of retaining it i recreant Protectionists ; dishonest 
Free Traders, hiding insincerity under the mask of in- 
tolerance ; too pusillanimous to stick by their colours, and 
not courageous eiraugh to take up a new position. . . . 
Lord Derby, in one of his speeches, likened a statesman 
to a barque, which trims its saib and alters its course 
with each changing wind and varying breeze. This is 
not my notion of a statesman. I liken a true statesman 
and upright politician to a steam vessel which pursues its 
steady coui^ amidst storms and waves in defiance of 
adverse gales and opposing tides, and straightforward 
reaches its destined port. 

This passage is a ftur example of Sir Wiliiam 
Molesworth's election speeches. It certainly does 
not conlirm what recent writers have said of the 
impresnon produced by his speakit^, as a Idnd 
of biltong of blue-books and statistics. The 
attack on Lord Derby was reproduced as an 
election poster and appeared on the walls of many 
constituencies. 

The election of 1 852 resulted in a small 
Uberal majority, but Lord Derby's Cabinet 
held office till i8th December, when they were 



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3o6 SIR WILUAM MOLESWORTH chai-. 

defeated on the Budget by a majority of nineteen, 
and the Queen called upon the Earl of Aberdeen 
to form a Government. The post of First Com- 
missioner of Works with a seat in the Cabinet was 
offered to and accepted by Sir William Moles- 
worth. The whole Cabinet consisted of the 
following : — 

The Earl of Aberdeen, Firet Lord of the Treasury. 

Lord Cranworth, Lord Chancellor. 

Earl Granville, Lord President of the Council. 

The Duke of Argyll, Lord Privy Seal. 

Mr. W. E. Gladstone, Chancellor of the Exchequer. 

Viscount Palmerston, Hooie Secretary. 

The Duke of Newcastle, Secretary for Colonics and 
War.» 

Lord John Russell (and later the Earl of Clarendon), 
Foreign Secretary. 

Sir James Graham, First Lord of the Admiralty. 

Mr, Sidney Herbert, Secretary at War. 

Sir Charles Wood, President of the India Board. 

Sir William Molcsworth, First Commissioner of 
Works. 

The Marquis of Lansdowne, without office. 

Sir William announced his appointment to his 
family in the following letter ; — 

87 Eaton Place, 
Dtt. 27, 1852. 
My dear Aunt — I am sure it will give you pleasure 
to learn that Her Majesty has been pleased to appoint me 

I The, Duke of Kewcutle wu.thc Uit Miniiter wba IkU Umm two 
office* jointljr. 



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XTi AS FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS 307 
a member of the Privy Council with a seat in the Cabinet. 
I am to be the First Commissioner of Worlcs and Public 
Buildings, and therefore shall have charge of the Royal 
Palaces and all public buildings and offices except those 
belonging to the Ordnance and Admiralty. I shall also 
have charge of the Paries of the metropolis^ of Greenwich, 
Richmond, Bushey and Phcenix, and Holyrood Palace j 
and of the public gardens at Kensington, Kew and 
Hampton Court. I shall have to perform many other 
duties in connection with the improvement of the 
metropolis. My office is not a very important or highly 
paid one, nor one for which I have any particular 
aptitude, but accompanied by a seat in the Cabinet it 
is one of much dignity, bringing me into frequent 
personal contact with the Queen. It will likewise maice 
me acquainted with the details of public business, and in 
all probability will eventually lead to one of the higher 
offices in the Government of our country. I believe I 
am to kiss hands to-morrow. — Your affectionate Nephew, 
William Moles worth. 

A letter to the same effect was posted to his 
mother at the same time. In the journals of Mr. 
Henry Reeve, the editor of the Greville Memoirs, 
the same event is thus recorded : — 

The Cabinet was wisely completed by the admission 
of Sir William Molesworth as a representative of advanced 
Liberal opinions. The place first offered him was the 
War Office without the Cabinet, but he resolutely 
declined it. I endeavoured to persuade him to accept, 
but he gave some valid reasons for that resolution ; and 
we endeavoured (with Dclane) to persuade Lord Aber- 



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3o8 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

deen to put him in the Cabinet, which he consented to 
do, even though Cardwell, the President of the Board of 
Trade, was still excluded. 

A litde later, 3rd March 1 853, the same journal 
records "a dinner at Molesworth's . . . made to 
bring Lord Aberdeen in contact with Bright."' 

Under the date of 30th May 1853, the GrevilU 
Memoirs have the following entry : — 

Granville tells me that of the whole Cabinet he thinks 
Aberdeen has the most pluck, Gladstone a great deal, 
and Graham the one who has least. He speaks very 
well of Molcsworth, sensible, courageous and conciliatory, 
but quite independent and plain-spoken in his opinions. 

No reader will need to be reminded that it was 
Lord Aberdeen's Cabinet of 1852 which was re- 
sponMble for the Crimean War. The friendship 
started at Molesworth's house between Bright and 
Lord Aberdeen lasted as long as the latter lived, 
and in 1887 Bright, in a public speech, stated; 
" Lord Aberdeen told me that in the whole Cabinet 
of which he was the chief there was only one man 
who backed him up in the slightest degree in 
favour of peace, and that was Sir William Molcs- 
worth." This of course refers to the private pro- 
ceedings in the Cabinet before the outbreak of 
war. When onra war was declared Sir William 
gave a cordial support to all that an energetic 
prosecurion of the war involved. 

' See Lin|ht(Ni'i Barj Jiimr, idU i. 



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XVI AS FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS 309 
As First O>inmlssioner of Works he will chiefly 
be remembered for his having had the courage to 
open Kew Gardens on Sunday. He was well 
aware of the intense Sabbatarianism of the elec- 
torate, and that no Minister or member of Parlia- 
ment could in the slightest degree infringe it 
without losing votes. Most Ministers were far 
too timid to venture to rouse the Sabbatarian lion 
&om his lair ; but Sir William Molesworth had 
never been afraid of his electors or of losing his 
seat, and as he was of Tom Hood's opinion that 
the closing of the gardens was " putting too much 
Sabbath into Sunday," he open«l them, and they 
have been a delightfiil resort for un-Sabbatarian 
England ever since. To-day even the most deeply 
religious can hardly perceive any sin in looking 
at trees and flowers on the day on which the 
Christian Church commemorates the resurrection. 



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CHAPTER XVII 

SOUTH AFRICA IN I852-54 

In speeches on Colonial self^overnment and the 
reduction of Colonial expenditure delivered in 
1850, 1851 and 1852, Sir William Mdesworth 
had strongly advocated giving the Colonies re- 
sponsible govemtnent and representative institu- 
tions ; after this had been done he urged that it 
should be clearly impressed upon them that they 
must no longer rely on the Home Government to 
carry on wars on their behalf with aboriginal 
tribes ; that in all matters of internal dispute they 
must rely on themselves, not on Downing Street ; 
in a word, that self-defence should be a necessary 
part of self-government. The repeated Kaffir 
wars in Cape Colony, and their costliness, were 
continually cited by Sir William in illustration of 
his views. His at^imient was that as long as we 
kept the Colonies in a state of tutelage, naturally 
they sent their bills to us ; give them self-govern- 



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cH*p.xvii SOUTH AFRICA IN 1851-5+ 311 

ment, he urged, and make them understand that 
they are to be individually responsible for their 
own internal wars. Sir William's view was that 
the Kaffir was totally uncivilisable, and that 
misMonary opinion to the contrary was a baseless 
delusion. We had subdued the Gael, he said, 
but we shall never subdue the Kaffirs ; they arc 
too numerous and too incurably savage. The 
boundary of British possessions in South Africa in 
1850 gave us, he argued, looo miles of frontier 
to defend ag^nst the inroads of savage tribes ; 
every extension of territory only added to the 
difficulties by making it necessary to defend a 
still more extensive frontier. He was therefore 
against all territorial expan^on in South Africa ; 
he even minimised the value of the Cape as a 
naval station. Looking upon Great Britain as 
essentially a naval, and not a military, power, he 
advocated the retention as naval stations of those 
places which could only be attacked by sea. 

A few commanding positions with good harbours 
should be chosen. They should be small, Isolated, salient 
points, easily defended, and close to the beaten paths of 
the ocean. I bold it to be quite contrary to the true 
policy of Great Britain to take military possession of 
large islands or vast portions of continents. I consider 
it to be utterly absurd for an essentially naval power to 
attempt the military defence of extensive coasts or long 
lines of frontier. That attempt has been made in South 
Africa with disastrous and costly results. 



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]ii SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH cur. 

He then enumerates the stations of which he 
would advise the retention. 

Gibraltar, at the mouth of the Mediterranean ; Malta, 
near its centre; Bermuda, in mid- Atlantic ; Halifax, 
commanding the coast of North America ; Barbadoes, 
amongst the Islands of the West Indies ; the peninsula 
extremity of South Africa, on the route to India ; the 
Mauritius, on the same road, and comnunding the 
Pcraan Gulf ^ Singapore, at the entrance of the China 
Seas i and perhaps Hong-Kong, amidst those seas. 

These eight stations, he reckoned, cotild be 
garrisoned by 17,000 men, and ought not to cost 
more than ^850,000 a year^iin military expendi- 
ture. 

This is not much more than the sum which the 
colony of the Cape of Good Hope, with its Kaffir wars, 
annually costs us on an average of years. ... If we 
consider, as some persons do, the whole colony of the 
Cape to be merely a military station, then the expense 
of this one ill-chosen station would be equal to the ex- 
penses of our eight best-chosen stations ; and the sum of 
money which we lavish on the Cape of Good Hope 
would, in my opinion, be sufficient to defiray the 
military expense of all the stations which our naval policy 
requires. 

He was consequently entirely opposed to Sir 
Harry Smith's policy of the expansion of British 
territory at the Cape, and threw ridicule on that 
eccentric Governor's methods of dealing with the 



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x»ii SOUTH AFRICA IN 1851-54 313 

natives. Sir Harry Smith, who had added the 
Orange River Territory to British South Africa, 
had tried to win the confidence of the KafErs by 
calling himself their chief, and requiring them to 
hail him by the title " Inkosi Inkulu," and kiss 
his foot, and go through other curioiB perform- 
ances, which were cert^nly undignified on his 
part as the representative of Great Britain, and 
also failed of their object in inspiring the Kafiirs 
with either friendship or awe. There are among 
the Pencarrow MSS. interesting extracts from 
letters of Sir George Napier, who had been six 
years Governor of Cape Colony, to his brother, 
Sir William Napier, highly approving of Sir 
William's speeches on Cape politics, and saying 
nothing could be more clear and correct in every 
way than his description of the country and its 
inhabitants, Kaffir and Dutch. Sir George Napier 
in these letters speaks vehemently against Lord Grey 
and the Downing Street system of governing the 
Cape : " They think they are Solomons, but in 
fact nothing but ignorance and folly are pre- 
dominant." He says that Sir Harry Smith's great 
mistake, far worse than the mountebank tricks 
which the Kaffirs laughed at, was giving in to the 
ignorant folly of the Home Government in recall- 
ing the military force then in South Africa. He 
should at once, when the Kaffir war broke out 
afresh, and he found himself totally unprepared 



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314 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

for it, have recc^nised his mistake, and have 
demanded from Lord Grey the immediate seiuUng 
out of reinforcements. 

Sir William Molesworth gave in his speorhes 
a graphic account of the miserable position of the 
more peaceable and ctvilisable of the nadve races 
of South Africa. They were pressed southwards 
from the north by hordes of warlike barbarians, 
while they were also pressed northwards from the 
south by the Europeans of Dutch descent. They 
were thus between the hammer and the anvil. 
The Colonial Office was also subjected at the 
same time to a double pressure. The force of 
public opinion at home, represented by the great 
missionary societies and the Aborigines Protection 
Society, were perpetually urging the Government 
to aid and protect the indigenous inhabitants of 
the various British colonies, espedally of the Cape, 
from the cruelties to which they were too often 
subjected by the European settlers. And on the 
other hand other persons, with whom Sir William 
Molesworth associated himself, saw the ^tuation 
more from the point of view of the settler, and 
declared that the missionaries were either un- 
practical visionaries, who in every dispute between 
white and black thought the white man bound to 
be wrong and the black man right, or self-seeking 
tradesmen, who under the cloak of a religious 
mission were commercial travellers engaging in 



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xvn SOUTH AFRICA IN iSji-H 315 

a highly remunerative trade, and demanding the 
protection of Great Britain in exacting the fulfil- 
ment of bargains distinguished by shrewd self- 
seeking rather than by altruistic benevolence. 
These two opposing schools were represented in 
London, but the parent stock of each was in the 
Cape itself. The English missionary was in 
vehement antagonism to the Dutch farmer, and 
the subject of their opposition to one another was 
the treatment of the coloured races. Sir William 
was more in sympathy with the settler than with 
the misMonary, as the following extracts show, but 
his account of the opposing parties holds the 
balance furly equal between them. 

Some of the Dutch, finding South Afnca to be best 
fitted for the rearing of flocks and herds, became a pas- 
toral people. . . . To provide food for their augmenting 
flocks and herds, new and extensive pastures were 
required ; and the Boers (as the pastoral Dutch are 
called) also drove out and exterminated the Hottentots. 
The Boers are a fine, tall, athletic race, good-humoured, 
but prone to anger, bred in sohtude or among inferior 
beings whom they despise. They are self-willed, self- 
relying, and apt to be tyrannicaL 

He then refers to the wars between the KafHrs 
and Boers, and the working of the commando 
system. 

When the cattle of the Dutch were stolen, they 
assembled under their captains, followed the traces of 



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3i6 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chat. 

their property, seized it or its equivalent wherever the^ 
found it, and righted themselves with a strong lund. 
In these excursions the Boer drew no distinction between 
the prowling and marauding savage and the beast of prey, 
but shot down with equal zest the cattle-stealing lion or 
Kaffir, and slew the bushman as a hideous, noxious reptile. 

He then describes the mis^onaries and thdr 
supporters. 

About 1833 a strong feeling was excited in this 
country with regard to the treatment of the coloured 
races in our Colonies. This feeling was produced by the 
exertions of some very amiable and excellent men, who 
were, however, frequently very misinformed. These 
worthy visionaries imagined that the fierce savages of 
South Africa, who delight in exterminating wan, who 
revel in human slaughter, and whose only notion of a 
deity is a blood-stained demon, were true Arcadian shep- 
herds (such as poets have fabled) living in pastoral 
simplicity, quietly tending their flocks and herds, and 
peacefully worshipping Pan and the Nymphs, till their 
pastorals were disturbed by the brutal and inhuman 
White. Under the influence of these fendes, the friends 
of the Aborigines believed that in every dispute between 
the Dutch and the Kaffir the Kaffir was invariably in 
the right and the Dutch invariably in the wrong, and 
they denounced the $}^tem of self-defence as a means 
adopted for gratifying the vengeance and cupidity of the 
Boer. These day-dreams were mistaken for realities by 
the excitable classes in this country, whose sensibilities 
are oftentimes more easily roused by fictitious wrongs 
abroad than by real suffering at home. Among these 



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XVII SOUTH AFRICA IN 1852-54 317 

credulous sentimentalists were some of the Ministers of 
the day, and emotion in the place of reason determined 
their Colonial policy.' 

The friends of the aborigines of South Africa 
were successful in getting an Act passed in 1836 
putting all natives, as far north as tile 25th degree 
of latitude, under British protection. It was found 
by experience that this virtually necessitated an- 
nexation. To protect the natives, their oppressors 
must be punished ; to punish criminals the first 
requisite is to apprehend them, and the next to 
subject them to trial. Police and judicial systems 
were therefore required. Moreover, it soon 
became evident that it was absurd to punish 
British and Dutch settlers for wrongs done to 
natives, but not to punish natives for wrongs 
done to British and Dutch settlers. The annexa- 
tion of the whole region became necessary, much 
to the regret of Sir William Molesworth, who 
s^d in the speech already quoted : *' This was 
ea^ly done by a proclamation of the Governor of 
the Cape of Good Hope, and another worthless 
kingdom was added to our barren South African 
empire." The 25th degree of latitude runs about 
100 miles north of Pretoria ; the line, therefore, 
included the whole of the Orange River Colony, 
and considerably more than half the Transvaal. 

> From '* Mitmili for ■ Speech in Defence of the Policy of ibtailonliig 
the Otm|e Rivo Territorj," M17 1SJ4. 



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3i8 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chat. 

The Act referred to was repealed by the Sand 
River Convention of 1852, and in lieu of it the 
Transvaal Boers undertook that no slavery should 
be permitted or practised in the country under 
their control. 

The abolition of slavery in 1833 had greatly 
angered the Boers of Cape Colony. This was 
followed by a lamentable want of efficient and 
bu»ness-]ike arrangements for paying them their 
share of the ^^20,000,000 voted by the British 
Parliament as compensation to the slave-holders ; 
they were defrauded of a great part of the sum 
voted to them ; and immediately upon this came 
the abolition, during the Colonial Secretaryship 
of Lord Derby, of the commando system of self- 
defence among the Ehitch. " The soul of goodness 
in things evil " helps us over many hard and difiibult 
places ; but here we have a soul of evil in things 
good that must give us pause. To abolish slavery, 
and voluntarily to submit to a taxation of 
j^ 20,000,000 to compensate the slave-owners, is a 
piece of national generosity of which the grand- 
children of the generation who did it may take a 
legitimate pride. But because no efficient pre- 
cautions were taken to see that the millions voted 
went into the pockets where they were due^ and 
because the law-makers of seventy years ^o chose 
to legislate for South Africa in ignorance of the 
facts of life on the veldt and the karoo, Ei^land 



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xvii SOUTH AFRICA IN 1851-5+ 3'9 

has been dc^ged by trouble and disaster m South 
Africa from that time to this. The great trek of 
1 836 was the first result of the action just described. 
The trek led to a formidable pohtical difficulty. 
The trekkers either were or were not British 
subjects. If they were not, England had no 
further responsibility for them, either to defend 
them against the attacks of savage tribes, or to 
punish them for deeds of cruelty to natives ; but 
if they were British subjects, then they must be 
both protected and governed ; military organisa- 
tion and judicial and police administration must be 
established at great cost in the wilds of Africa. 
There are great and obvious disadvantages in 
having a political No-man's-land on your frontier : 
if criminals and ne'er-do-weels can escape punish- 
ment by stepping across an imaginary boundary 
line, the lives of those who love peace and order 
on either ade of that line are not made happier 
thereby. Almost every colonising nation has dis- 
covered the force of circumstances which make 
constant extensions of territory almost inevitable. 
MisMonaries in South Africa, in the period under 
review, were constantly urging the English Govern- 
ment to extend British territory, in order mwnly 
to protect the natives from oppression, and also 
because of the moral disadvantages of having a 
political Alsatia on the borders of a newly settled 
community. 



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jao SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

In the early history of our Colonies and De- 
pendencies mistakes can often be traced to the 
fact that English statesmen could not bring them- 
selves to believe that anything better could exist 
than a reproduction of the social and economic 
conditions of the mother country. Thus the 
Clergy Reserves of Canada were a futile attempt 
at reproducing the English glebe system, heedless 
of the fact that the untrodden forests of Canada 
were absolutely unlike the pastiu-es and com lands 
of England. The zemindars and ryots of Bengal 
were taken for Indian reproductions of landlord 
and tenant at home, and treated as such. In 
Natal, a Secretary of State, bwng entirely ignorant 
of the physical state of South Africa, fancied that 
the size of farms should not much exceed the wze 
of farms in England, and he gave orders to that 
cflfect to the Colonial Governor. The carrying out 
of this order gave rise to intense hostility ag^nst 
English administration on the part of the Dutch 
farmers. Again, with r^ard to the commando 
system, we did not take si^dent heed of what the 
conditions of life in South Africa were. The 
Boer and Kaffir were r^arded as the equivalent of 
the English farmer and labourer. It needs some 
imagination to picture the position and conditions 
of life of a white femily living in the vast expanses 
of South Africa, in entire isolation from other 
Europeans, and surrounded by swarms of savages. 



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XVII SOUTH AFRICA IN 1851-54 321 

or, to put it at its best, very imperfectly civilised 
natives ; and this imagination was conspicuous by 
its absence when the commando system was 
abolished and no really efficient military or police 
protection substituted for it. 

Enough has perhaps been s^d to explain why 
it was that Sir William Molesworth, who had so 
strongly grasped the conception of the Imperial 
idea in Australia and Canada, was a Little Englander 
in South Africa. He had made it the work of his 
life to promote the development of the Colonial 
Empire of Great Britain in Australia, New Zealand 
and Canada, on the lines of raalcing those Colonies 
self-governing parts of a federated Empire. South 
Africa, he believed, would never form part of such 
an Em[nre. He was convinced that it always had 
been, and always would be, worthless ; that roads 
could never be made in it ; that for want of roads 
commerce could never develop. That men of 
English blood, understanding and sympathising 
with English political institutions and ideals of 
self-government, would never form any consider- 
able part of the population ; the native population 
he regarded as incurably degraded. South Africa 
was in his eyes the Ugly Duckling of the Colonial 
flock ; and his schemes for the development of the 
Australian and other Colonies were thwarted by 
the expenses of the constantly recurring Kaffir 
wars — tlus is a subject to which he recurs again 



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3»i SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chat. 

and ag!un, and counts up the nullions which these 
fruitless (as he considered them) contests with 
savages had cost us. Therefore he opposed every 
extension of British territory in South Africa, and 
prepared a speech in 1854 which he never delivered, 
but the materials for which he published, in defence 
of the policy of abandoning the Orange River 
Territory by the Government of which he was a 
member. Sir William's premises were wrong, and 
from them he drew what nearly all Englishmen 
now know to be a false conclu»on. It is the one 
great mistake of his otherwise extraordinarily far- 
seeing and enlightened Colonial policy. In judging 
it we should not forget that we are doing so by 
the light of nearly fifty years' more experience than 
were at his disposal. In 1853 r^way enterprise 
was in its infancy even in Europe ; telegraphic 
communication across the ocean was unknown.* 
The commercial development of South Africa 
had hardly begun. Still, when all possible excuses 
have been made, the special circumstances of the 
abandonment of the Orange River Territory can 
never be recalled by Englishmen without shame. 
A war had been begun in 1852 with the powerful 
Basuto chief, Moshesh ; Sir George Cathcart, who 
commanded the British forces, had very much 
underestimated the strength and skill of the enemy. 
After 6ne indecisive engagement, which had re- 

> The lirM AtUntk cable «u Uid in 1858. 



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XVII SOUTH AFRICA IN 1851-54 313 

vealed the formidable character of the Basuto 
army, Moshesh very craftily made overtures for 
peace. These were accepted ; and then a policy 
of scuttle was adopted, leaving the military strength 
of the Basutos as formidable as ever. The Com- 
missioner sent out from Ejigland to conduct the 
policy of abandonment, ^r George Clerk, tried in 
vain to get a sanction from the European settlers 
behind which Engknd could have sheltered herself 
in her withdrawal on the plea that it was approved 
by the white inhabitants of the district. He called 
upon them to elect a body of representatives to 
take over the government of the country. The 
representatives assembled ; they consisted of 
seventy-six Dutch and nineteen English members, 
and they objected in the strongest terms to their 
abandonment by Great Britain. The few who 
approved were termed " the well-disposed," while 
those who desired to maintun the British connec- 
tion were called "the obstructionists." A violently 
anti-British Boer from the Transvaal, named 
Stander, was employed by the British Commis- 
sioner to go about the country making speeches 
against the British connection, and representing 
both in public speech and in private conversation 
that it meant nothing but restraint, without the 
advantage of affording protection against the 
native tribes. The assembly sent two represent- 
atives to England to implore the Government 



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31+ SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

not to abandon them ; but they met with no 
success.' As much p^ns and ingenuity were ex- 
pended to rid us of the Orange River Colony 
as might have sufficed to bind it to us for ever. 
If the story of the Abysanian Expedition thrills 
us with national pride, the story of the abandon- 
ment of the Orange River Territory reduces us 
again to an attitude of penitence and humiliation. 
There is consolation in thinking how sharply we 
have been punished for our pusillanimity. 

The Royal Proclamation withdrawing from the 
Sovereignty of the Orange River Territory was 
signed on 30th January 1854. One excuse may 
be offered. All through 1853 war clouds had 
been gathering in Europe. On 21st February 
1854 diplomatic relations between Russia and the 
allied powers of England and France came to an 
end, and the Crimean War began almost immedi- 
ately afterwards. England doubtiess felt that she 
needed all her military strength in the European 
War in which she was about to engage. Still 
nothing can palliate the meanness of the scuttle 
in South Africa. In the speech justifj^ng the 
abandonment Sir William Molesworth reiterated 
the objections he had frequently felt and expressed 
against the extenaon of British territory in South 
Africa, but he says nothing of the peculiar circum- 



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XVII SOUTH AFRICA IN i8s«-S+ 3^5 

stances of the abandonment — the recent abortive 
struggle with Moshesh and the nearly unanimous 
protest of the settlers, Dutch as well as British, 
against the withdrawal of England. If no defence 
was offered by Sir William on these points, it may 
well be felt that there was none to offer. 

In 1878, when Mr. J. P. S. Kruger and Mr. 
Joubert came to England to protest against the 
English annexation of the Transvaal, they asked 
and obtained of Sir William Molesworth's widow 
permission to republish the " Materials for a speech 
in defence of the policy of abandoning the Orange 
River Territory," which had been published origin- ■ 
ally in May 1854. On 25th June 1854 Sir 
George Grey, M.P., who was Home Secretary in 
Lord Palmerston's Government in 1855, wrote to 
Sir William that he had never read anything with 
greater pleasure than this defence of the policy of 
abandoning the Orange River Territory. " It is 
one of the clearest and most interesting statements 
regartUng the state of the country which I have 
ever seen." In i860, the other Sir George Grey, 
the Colonial statesman, wrote sadly from the Cape, 
of which he was then Governor, to the Colonial 
Office, describing the distracted state of the Orange 
Free State, which he said was due to independence 
having been thrust upon it against the wishes of 
nearly all its most influential inhatntants. 



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CHAPTER XVm 



CLOSING YEARS 



Sir William Molesworth became a member of 
Lord Aberdeen's Cabinet on almost the last day 
of the year 1852. He was therefore jointly 
respoR^ble with the rest of the Cabinet for the 
policy which culminated in the outbreak of war 
with Rus^ in the sjning of 1854. It has been 
already mentioned that John Bright stated in a 
public speech, in 1887, that Lord Aberdeen had 
told him that in the discus^ons in the Cabinet 
before the declaration of war Sir William Moles- 
worth more than any other Minister had supported 
him in his desire for peace. When war actually 
began, however, Sir William was wholly desirous 
of carrying it on mth vigour, and fkdng all the 
sacrifices which it entailed. It is little surprising, 
therefore, that the peace -at -any -price party, the 
leaders of which were his old friends and associates 
in the House of Commons, looked upon him as a 



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CHAP. XVIII CLOSING YEARS 317 

deserter, and he was bitterly attacked as such by 
Cobden and Bright. On one of these occasions, 
June 1855, Cobden challenged Molesworth to 
read aloud tn public the speech he had made at 
Leeds, fifteen years before, in favour of peace 
when it had appeared probable that hostilities 
would break out between England and France over 
the Eastern question. A few days later Moles- 
worth accepted the challenge, and in a crowded 
House read out extracts from his Leeds speech of 
1840, which Cobden must have been rather 
surprised to find strongly supported an alliance 
with France against Russia for the protection of 
Turkey. The speech was, in fact, a remarkable 
illustration of the con»stency of Sir William 
Molesworth's attitude in foreign politics. In his 
statement in the House in reply to Cobden, Sir 
William said : — 

With regard to the speech respecting the Syrian 
question, it was delivered at Leeds fifteen years ago. On 
referring to it, I found that so iar from its being, as 
the hon. gentleman said, utterly at variance with my 
present opinions, it was in some respects remarkably in 
accordance with my present views. For in that speech I 
alluded to and foreshadowed the possible necessity of a 
war similar to that in which we are now engaged — 
namely, a war in which France and England should be 
allied to protect Turkey against Russia. The hon. 
gentleman wished the other night that I could be forced 
to read that speech at the table of the House. With the 



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3»8 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

permission of the House, I will read short extracts from 
it. I said, speaking of the sJliance with Russia and the 
alienation of France, produced by our conduct on the 
Syrian question, which I was afraid would produce a war 
with France — 

"We have formed an alliance with Russia, whose 
interests are hostile to our own in the East. We 
have lost the alliance of France, the only European 
power which has an interest equally strong, and a desire 
equally urgent with ourselves, to prevent the occupation 
of Constantinople by Russia. Who does not perceive 
that every wound inflicted in France by England, or in 
England by France, must be a source of rejoicing to the 
northern barbarian — an obstacle removed from his path 
to Constantinople ? " . . . 

After some further extracts from the speech of 
1 840, he concluded mth this one : — 

Let us say to Russia, we will not permit you to make 
an attempt to assume to yourself the sovereignty of the 
Turlcish Empire, If you presume to interfere in afiairs 
which are not yoiu* own and menace Constantinople, 
France, united with England, will compel you to desist. 

The judgment of posterity has very generally 
been pronounced m favour of Bright and Cobden 
and against Lord Aberdeen's Cabinet on the policy 
of the Crimean War, but the attack of the two 
great leaders of the peace party in 1855 upon Sir 
William Molesworth, on the ground of inconsist- 
ency, signally i^led. The truth is, that never, 
even in his most youthful days, did he speak at 



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xviii CLOSING YEARS j«9 

random, or without very careful study and diligent 
search into the facts bearing on the subject of his 
speeches. Thus an unbroken harmony is to be 
found between his official and unoffidaJ utterances. 
He received a promise from Lord Aberdeen before 
he joined his Cabinet that he should be free to 
speak and vote in support of the Ballot, whatever 
the ojMnions of his colleagues in the Cabinet might 
be on secret voting; and on 13th June 1854 
from the Government bench of the House of 
Commons he spoke in favour of the Ballot, and 
addressed his arguments in the main to replying to 
his colleague. Lord Falmerston, who had used the 
stock arguments ag^nst the Ballot in a speech 
earlier in the debate. Agun, on another subject, 
the payment of the interest by England on the 
Russo-Dutch loan, he was able, as a Minister, to 
repeat with additional emphasis the conclu^ve 
arguments he had used several years earlier, as an 
independent member, to show that England was 
bound by every consideration of honour and policy 
to continue to pay the interest as long as it was 
due. When at the peace of 18 14 England agreed 
to buy of the King of the Netherlands the Cape, 
Demerara and some other Dutch Colonial posses- 
sions for ^^6,000,000, the sum was in part paid by 
England taking upon herself obligations incurred 
by the Netherlands to Russia. By the Convention 
signed in London in May 1815 England was 



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3JO SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

bound to continue to pay interest on the sum in 
question as long as Holland and Belgium were 
united. Holland and Belgium separated in 1830. 
Russia objected and oilered to send an army c^ 
-60,000 men to Holland to compel Belgium to 
remain part of the Dutch kingdom. Elngland, 
on the other hand, favoured the separation of 
Belgium from Holland, and entered into a renewed 
engagement with Russia to continue to pay the 
interest on the Russo-Dutch loan, even in the 
event of war breaking out between Great Bribun 
and Rus»a. These facts had only to be stated in 
the House of Commons, with the clearness of which 
Sir William Molesworth was a master, to make it 
evident that to repudiate the payment of interest 
would either be an act of bankruptcy or of 
barbarism. He utterly smashed the case fen- with- 
holding it, and after hearing him the House rejected 
the motion for doing so by more than eleven to 
one. On the subject of the Clei^ Reserves of 
Canada, Sir William was able, as a Minister, to 
give effect to the principles he had always main- 
tained as an independent member. He spoke on 
behalf of the Government on this subject on 3rd 
March 1853, on the second reading of a Bill for 
transferring to the Canadian Legislature the control 
of this vexed question. He entreated the House 
of Commons not only to leave the Qergy Reserves 
to be settled by Canada, but to accept as the 



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xvin CLOSING YEARS 331 

settled principle of British Colonial policy that alt 
questions affecting exclusively the lociil interests 
of a. Colony should be dealt with by the Colonial 
Legislatures. 

The duties of his office were discharged by 
Molesworth with the thoroughness which character- 
ised everything he undertook:. He had to prepare 
plans for the building of a new National Gallery, 
and for this purpose he caused the plans of every 
great picture gallery in Europe to be compared and 
examined — a labour the results of which are said 
to have been neglected by his successor. He was 
responsible for the laying out of Victoria Park, and 
the ornamental gardening in the London parks was 
initiated by him ; his knowledge of trees and of 
horticulture made his official connection with Kew 
peculiarly agreeable to him. 

Complimentary recognition of his position as a 
public man was not wanting to him. In September 
1854 he received the Freedom of the City of 
Eldinburgh. In a speech acknowledging the honour, 
he referred to his connection, both by birth and 
education, with the city of which he had become a 
citizen. 

By birth I am half a Scotchman. I am proud of my 
Scotch blood, and of belonging to the same family as 
David Hume, the historian and philosopher. In the 
University of Edinburgh I was educated under Leslie, 
Jamieson, and other eminent professors. In my youth 



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331 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

I was so fortunate as to enjoy the acquaintance and to 
profit by the conversation of Sir Walter Scott, Jefirey, 
Brewster, Sir William Hamilton, Sir John Sinclair, James 
Mill, and other distinguished Scotchmen. I am therefore 
attached to Edinburgh by feelings of gratitude, aiFection, 
and admiration ; and the strength of those feelings has 
not diminished by an absence of many years. Since I 
left Edinburgh I have visited many of the most celebrated 
cities in Europe, but none of them ever appeared to me to 
compare in beauty with the metropolis of Scotland. 

The breaking up of Lord Aberdeen's Ministry 
early in 1855 mis caused by the popular dis- 
satisfaction with the way in which the war had 
been carried on, and especially by the collapse of the 
commissariat and by the inadequate provision of 
shelter and clothing for otu* troops. Lord Derby 
was invited by the Queen to form a Government, 
but he failed to do so. A similar invitation was 
extended to Lord John Russell with the same 
result. Lord Palmerston then was sent for and 
formed a Government. There was a general re- 
shuffling of the cards, and the curious plan, adhered 
to up to that time, of combining the offices of 
Secretary for War and the Colonies, was abandoned. 
Lord John Russell, who was away attending the 
Vienna Conference at the time the Government 
was formed, was made Secretary of State for the 
Colonies when he returned. The political wise- 
acres expressed much surprise at his willingness to 



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xviii CLOSING YEARS 333 

serve under his old enemy, Palmerston. Gladstone, 
Sidney Herbert and Graham resigned. Molesworth 
continued in his office as Chief Commissioner of 
Works. 

The Vienna Congress failed in its object of 
bringing about a cessation of hostilities. Lord John 
Russell's part in it was very far from plea^ng his 
chief or the country, and his speeches when he 
returned were considered to be very inconsistent 
with the line he had taken in Vienna. In July 
Sir E. B. Lytton gave notice of a vote of censure 
on Lctfd John's conduct of the negotiations, and 
he, anticipating the success of the motion, resigned 
his office and left the Government. His place as 
Secretary of State for the Colonies was offered by 
Lord Palmerston to Sir William Molesworth and 
accepted by him. It was the achievement of a worthy 
and dignified ambition. At the age of forty-five 
he found himself as a Cabinet Minister at the head 
of that department of the State to the subject of 
which the best years of his life and best powers of 
his mind had been devoted. 

When Lord Palmerston was re-forming his 
Government in February 1855, after the resigna- 
tion of Gladstone, Graham and Sidney Herbert, 
Sir William Molesworth wrote a letter to him con- 
taining some suggestions on the reconstruction of 
the Cabinet. The loss of the Pcelite section he 
con^dered a gain rather than the reverse. He 



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334 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

pressed strongly, however, for the promotion of 
Cardwell to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
"He is a sound and able man, would do the 
duties of that office well and deserves promotion." 
He also ut^ed the promotion of Mr. Baines (his 
old colleague at Leeds) to the India Board. 

He is an able man and a new one. The places 
vacated by Cardwell and Baines should, I think, be 
filled by Lowe and F. Peel, and I should attach great 
importance to your getting Layard to take Peel's place 
of Under-Secretary of War. In the event of Wood 
refusing to go to the Admiralty and Seymour becoming 
First Lord, I should recommend that Baines be made 
Home Secretary, and that Sir George Grey should return 
to the Colonies. And you must permit me to add, in 
consequence of the deep interest I take in the adminis- 
tration of the Colonies, that I should be glad to see Sir 
George Grey again in that office, and that I did not 
altogether approve of the appointment of a gentleman ^ 
unfamiliar with Colonial ai^irs, though, in the peculiar 
circumstances of the formation of your Government, I 
felt myself precluded from objecting to that appoint- 
ment. 

When Lord John Rxissell's resignation of the 
Colonial Secretaryship in July 1855 was followed 
by its acceptance by Sir William Molesworth, the 
appointment was hailed by the press both at home 
and in the Colonies as the best which had ever been 
made. 

' Mr, Sidoey Herbert. 



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rviii CLOSING YEARS J35 

The Times of 21st July 1855 said : — 

It would be difficult to exaggerate the services which 
during his Parliamentary career the new Colonial Secretary 
had rendered to the cause of the Colonies, and the degree 
in which, by so doing, he had consolidated and con- 
ciliated the remoter portionsoFthis great Empire. ... If 
not the founder, he may be feirly termed the regenerator 
and purifier of that great group of dependencies. . . . 
Much will be expected of such 2 Minister, and Sir William 
Molesworth must be inde&rigable and successful if he 
overcome the formidable rivalry of his own already 
achieved reputation. 

The Colonial press was equally enthusiastic in 
approval of the new appointment, and private 
letters from the Colonies expressed the high degree 
of satisfaction which had been produced. In one 
of these a Canadian statesman, writing to one of 
Molesworth's friends, said, " Do tell Sir William 
that he has made us a part of the empire, de facto. 
God bless him for it, say I." The share which 
ocean telegraphy has had in bridging the distance 
between England and the Colonies is best 
appredated by a consideration of the state of things 
before it eidsted. Sir William's appointment was 
made at the end of July. It was not till the be- 
ginning of November that news of it was received 
in Australia. On 3rd November The Aiklaide 
Observer, The Launceston Examiner, and other 
Australian papers contained articles rejoicing over 



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J36 SIR WILUAM MOLESWORTH chm. 

it. But by that time, the hand and bran from 
which so much had been expected and hoped were 
cold in death, and Sir William's family had the 
bitter task of reading these eulogies when they 
only served to deepen their sense of desolation and 
loss. 

The transfer of a Minister from one office to 
another at that time necessitated re-election. Sir 
William did not encounter any opposition in South- 
wark when he appealed for the last time to the 
electorate. But a speech which he made to his 
constituents led to a renewal of the political quarrel 
between himself and the leaders of the extreme 
peace party in the House of Commons. A day 
or two before Sir William had vacated his seat, 
there had been a division in the House of Com- 
mons on the subject of a Turkish loan, in which 
three usually antagonistic parties had united iin an 
endeavour to defeat the Government : these were 
(i) the Conservatives ; (2) the Peace party, repre- 
sented by Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright ; and (3) 
the Peelites who had lately resigned office, repre- 
sented by Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Sidney Herbert. 
Sir William in an election speech had implied that 
this combination was a conspiracy, and when he 
returned to the House of Commons, 3rd August 
1855, he was bitterly attacked. The heated 
atmosphere of current politics at that moment is 
demonstrated by the usually gentle Cobden making 



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xviii CLOSING YEARS JJ7 

a fierce onslaught on Molesworth and saying that 
he was " utterly unfaithful and utterly unworthy 
of the confidence of any political party." Glad- 
stone followed, also in a hostile speech, mainly 
devoted to the point that the combination of 
parties voting agiunst the Government in the 
previous week had been accidental and not con- 
certed, and therefore had none of the elements of 
a conspiracy. Sir William in his reply accepted 
this statement unreservedly, but in reference to 
Cobden's attacks said that while he had been 
thoroughly at one with the honourable gendeman, 
the member for the West Riding, on the subject of 
Free Trade, he had never shared his views on the 
possibility of universal peace. But Cobden refused 
to be reconciled or to withdraw the bitter charges 
he had made. Why do those who profess peace 
principles so often apply them only to the region 
of physical conflict ? It not infrequendy appears 
that the peace-at-any-price man is even below the 
average fighting animal in the power of bringing the 
qualities of gentleness and generosity to !ud the 
judgment in those regions where the conflict is 
between opposing schools of thought. Is it that 
the fighting instinct must have some oudet, and 
that those who are, for conscience' sake, debarred 
from taking part even vicariously, in physical 
conflict, impart ten times more bitterness into the 
controversial battle ? 



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jjS SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chap. 

Sir William Molcsworth was ever a fighter, but 
the time was now very near when *' the glory and 
the grief of battle won or lost " would be over for 
him for ever. He was not in the Colonial Office 
long enough to ^ve further efiect to any of his 
cherished schemes for Colonial reform. Almost 
his only official act in the House of Commons as 
Colonial Secretary was moving and carrying, on 
the advice of the Colonial statesman, the great Sir 
George Grey, then Governor of Cape Colony, 
a vote of j^40,ooo to be used for educating 
and otherwise improving the condition of the 
Kaffirs. This was on 31st July. The end of 
the session nearly always found Sir William in 
a condition of physical exhaustion, which he 
endeavoured to repair by resort to the pure air 
of Cornwall or of the Highlands of Scotland ; 
but in 185J the anxieties connected with his 
new office, and also the stress and strain on 
the whole Government caused by the Crimean 
War, combined to detain him in London. On 
loth September 1855 he wrote to his Mster, Mrs. 
Ford: — 

Colonial Opticb. 

My dear Mary — The south side of Scbastopol 
has iallen. I send you the telegraphic message just 
received. 

W. MoLESWORTH. 



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xvm CLOSING YEARS 339 

The accompanying mess^e ran ; — 

Vakna, 9.30. — During the night the Russians have 
sunk all the remainder of the line of battleships in the 
harbour. 

September 9. 
Varna, 9.30. — Sebastopol is in the possession of the 
Allies. The enemy during the night have evacuated the 
south side after exploding their magazines and setting fire 
to the whole of the town. All the men-of-war were 
burnt during the nighty with the exception of three 
steamers which are flying about the harbour. 

This was the last letter which Mrs. Ford ever 
received from her brother. His illness began 
almost immediately after it had been written. His 
old friend and physician, Dr. Elliotson, was called 
in after Sir William had been uling for some time, 
and pronounced him to be most dangerously ill 
from gastric fever. The end can best be told in 
the words of his devoted sister. After describing 
the beginning of his illness, Mr. Fcs-d continues 
in a letter, written to an intimate friend of the 
family i—r 

On Tuesday I came up. I asked that Elliotson might 
be called in. My prayer was granted. Elliotson had 
been for twenty-three years in constant attendance, and 
had pulled him through desperate illnesses^ and knew his 
constitution thoroughly. On Wednesday ElUotson said 



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3+0 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH chip. 

sdl hope was gone. He is dying in the most heroic 
manner, with alt his Acuities about him, perfectly re- 
signed, and leaves his wealth, his great position, the 
ambition of his life granted, without a murmur, yet be 
has struggled hard kx life. 

12 o'cUci. — He still lives, but is sinking rapidly. . . . 
If he had a particle of constitution left he might have 
been saved, for the disease has been conquered, but the 
life he has led of constant excitement for the last year and 
a half has destroyed him. Oh, vanity of vanities ! I 
have seen him once. He held out his hand to me ; I 
kissed it twice. The (ace looks so handsome ; all fulness 
gone. The beautiful features so wasted have become 
quite sculpturesque. The eye is not blue, but the most 
lovely violet. He suffers no pain. He swallowed during 
the night a pint of milk, but refijses all stimulants. When 
Johnstone, the surgeon, offered him them this morning 
he looked him fiill in the (ace, and said, ''I will take it 
if you swear to me that I have a chance of life." He 
reasons moet lucidly. 

A later letter to the same friend teUs that the 
end came quite painlessljr on 22nd October, at 
twelve o'clock. 

Sir William showed to the last moment of tus 
life the most perfect fortitude and self-possession. 
He gave directions about his funeral, that it should 
be plun and unostentatious, " but like a gentle- 
man's"; the spot chosen was to be bright and 
sunny, and the stone recording his name of Cornish 
granite. His old servant MacLean wassummonol 
from Pencarrow, and was welcomed by lus dying 



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.J-ZA. 



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xnii CLOSING YEARS 341 

master with a smile and a parting shake of the 
hand. When all was over, Mrs. Ford writes 
that *< the faithful old man shut himself up with 
the body and passed the long night with the loved 
remains, weeping over his Bible." 

Sir William Molesworth was deeply mourned 
both in England and in the Colonies. It is seldom 
that a man dying at the ^e of forty-five has been 
able to accomplish so much ; and by those who 
knew him best it was believed that what he had 
done was only an earnest of what was to come ; 
but these were hopes destined never to be fulfilled. 

He had seen as very few besides himself saw at 
that time, that with the destruction of the system 
of arbitrary government by the Colonial Office, 
colonists would become true and loyal citizens of 
the British Emfure. He had advocated in 1850 
the admission into the British Parliament of repre- 
sentatives from the Colonies. His dream is in this 
last respect stiU unfulfilled, but who can say that 
we are not appreciably nearing its fulfilment ? 

Lord Falmerston, writing to Andalusia, Lady 
Molesworth, to express his sympathy with her 
on her husband's death, thus summed up the im- 
pression which Molesworth had made upon his 
colleagues. 



To me, and to my colleagues and the country, his 
loss has indeed been great. Wc have lost a friend whom 



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3+1 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH ch. xnn 

we loved and valued, as a sharer in our toils, and an aid 
in our difficulties. We have lost a thorough English 
gentleman, and a thorough English statesman, and much 
indeed is comprehended in these two terms. 

For singleness of mind, honesty of purpose, clearness 
of judgment, faithfulness of conduct, courage in difficulties, 
and equanimity in success he was never surpassed, and 
deeply must any nation lament the premature loss of 
such a man. 



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APPENDIX 

DESCENT OF 
SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH, Bart., M.P. 

Hendbr Molesworth, the first fiaronct (1689}, was 
twice married but died childless. He was suc- 
ceeded by his brother, 

John, znd Bart., married Margery, daughter of Thomas 
Wise of Sidenham, Devon. 

John, 3rd Bart., nnarried Jane, daughter of John Arscott 
of Tctcott, Devon. 

John, 4th Bart., died 1766, married Barbara, 2nd daughter 
and co-heiress of Sir Nicholas Morrice, Bart., of 
Werrington, Devon. 

John, 5th Bart., died 1775, married Frances, daughter 
and co-heiress of James Smith, Esq., of St. Andries, 
Somerset. 

William, 6th Bart., died 1798, married Catherine 
Treby, daughter of Admiral Paul Henry Ourry, 
Commissioner of Plymouth Dockyard. 

Arscott Ourry, 7th Bart., died 1823, married Mary, 
daughter of Patrick Brown, Esq., of Edinburgh. 

William, 8th Bart., born 1810, married Andalusia, widow 
of Mr. Temple West ; died childless in 1855 ; was 
succeeded by his cousin, Hugh H, Molesworth. 



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3+4 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH 

LIST OF SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH-S 
HOUSE OF COMMONS SPEECHES OK 
COLONIAL SUBJECTS. 

1. On Canada, 6th March 1837. 

2. On second reading of Canada BiU, 23rd January 

1838. 

3. State of the Colonies, 6th March 1838. 

4. On Colonial Lands, 27th June 1839. 

5. On Transportation, 5th May 1840. 

6. On Convict Discipline, 3rd June 1847. 

7. On Colonial Expenditure, 25th July 18+8, 

8. For a Royal Commission to inquire into the Ad- 

ministration of the Colonies, 23th June 1 849. 

9. On the introduction of Lord John Russell's Bill 

for the better government of the Australian 
Colonies, 8th February 1850. 

10. On second reading of same Bill, i8th February 1850. 

11. On Mr. Walpolc's motion to establish two Houses 

of Legislature in New South Wales and Victoria 
respectively, 22nd March 1850, 

12. In Committee on Bill for better government of 

the Australian Colonics, 19th April 1850. 

13. Motion to recommit the same Bill, 6th May 1850. 

14. Motion for reduction of Colonial Expenditure, roth 

April 1 851. 

15. Motion to discontinue Transportation to Van 

Diemen's Land, 20th May 1851. 

16. On Kaffir Wars, 5th April 1852. 

17. On second reading of the Clergy Reserves (Canada) 

Bill, 5th March 1853. 



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CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF CHIEF 
EVENTS IN SIR WILLIAM MOLES- 
WORTH'S LIFE. 

1810. Born in London, 23rd May. 

1823. Father died. 

1824. Taken to Edinburgh for education. 

1S26. Becomes a student of the University^ of Edin- 
burgh. 

1827. Enters St. John's College, Cambridge. Migrates 

to Trinity. 

1828. Leaves Cambridge for Germany. 

1829. Duel. Short visit to England. Visits Rome. 

1830. In Rome and other Italian towns. 

1 83 1. Returns to England to keep his majority. Is 

accepted as Liberal candidate for East Cornwall. 

1832. Elected for East Cornwall. 

1833. First session of Reformed Parliament. Forms 

friendship with Mr. and Mrs. Grote. 

1834. Joins the newly-founded South Australian Associa- 

tion. 

1835. Founds The Lmdm Reviewy afierwArds The Londen 

and ffestminiter. Seconds Grote's motion in 
the House of Commons in &vour of the Ballot. 
Becomes a Fellow of the Royal Society. 
1835-6. Re-elected for East Cornwall. 

1836. Founds the Reform Club. Speech on the Orange 

Lodges. Death of Miss Elizabeth Molesworth. 

1837. Elected for Leeds. New Zeabnd Association 

founded. Moves for Select Committee on 
Transportation. 



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34-6 SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH 

1838. Chairman of Transporution Committee. B^iu 

the edition of Hobbcs. Speeches on Canada. 
Supports Lord Durham. 

1839. Mr. Francis Molesworth emigrates to New Zea- 

land. 

1840. Death of Lord Durham. Peace meeting at Leeds. 

1841. General Election. Retires from Leeds and from 

Parliament. Worlcs at the edition of Hobbes. 

1842. Death of his brother, Mr. A. O. Molesworth. 
18+4. Marries Mrs. Temple West. 

1845. Elected again to the House of Commons as 

member for Southwark. 

1 846. Death of his brother, Mr. Francis A. Molesworth. 
1 847-8-9. Work in the House of Commons for Colonial 

Reform. 

1850. Constitutions granted to the Australasian Colonics. 

1851. Last speech against Transportation. 

1852. Joins the Earl of Aberdeen's Administration as 

First Commissioner of Works with a seat in 
the Cabinet. 

1853. Final Abolition of Transportation except in 

Western Australia. 

1854. Beginning of the Crimean War. 

1855. Joins Lord Palmerston's Government. Becomes 

Secretary of State for the Colonies in July. 
Dies on aand October. 



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INDEX 



Abercrombic, the Rt. Hon. Juuea, 

74 ■. 
Aberdwn, Eirl of, 155-156, joG-joS 
Abolition of ilivery, Ji8 
Abjittinian Eipcdition, iq6 
Adelaide, Queen, unpopuliriCy of, ]J 
Argyll, Duke of, joG 
ATiiold, Matthew, 107 
" Auditor nf Cornwall," John Mota- 

Auitln, Chirle*, 70, 90, 95, 167, 

aa6-iog. III, iiS, tja, 135, 241 

Anitia, Mn. John, 51, loz, 1 58,195 

Bain, Prof. A, Liji 0/ Jmmi, MiU, 

Bainei, Sir Edmid, M.P., iiS, 116, 

Barnard, Mr., Sir William'i duel 

BarouEtcy, date of the Moleiworth, 7 
Behaa, Mr., the iculptor, portrait 

bn)ti of Sir Wm. MoLciwiHth by, 

»J9 
Bentham,J., 1. 17,47, 154 
Binninghun Refonnen, Si 
Boen angered by abolition of iliveiy, 

!'! 
"Brend*," 1x7 
Bright, the Rt. Hon. John, M.P., 

171,171,308,316,336 
BrDBgham, Lord, 60, 6], 69, 190, 193 
Brown, Captain, marriage of, to Miu 

Hume. 9, 10 
Buller, Chuka, t, 3, ii, 18, 35, 40, 



41. 46. 70. 7». 79. I<S 9". "S. 
138, 157, 161, 193, 100, »17, 
173 ; death of, 174 
Byron, Lady, 4! 

Cambridge UniTenity In 1817-18, 



Canterbury, Lord (Mannen Sutton), 

61, 73 .. 
Cape Colony lucceufully reiuti being 

Cardwell, Mr. E. (■ftamrdi Lord), 

308, 334 
Carlyle, Thomai, on Charla Buller, 

11 ; on Sir Wm. Moleaworth, 46 i 

on Grote, 51 ; hi> Oiitv CrmmKll, 

59 
Clarence, Duke of, afterwanb 

William IV., 89 
Clay, Rev. J., oa tnniportatioD, 141 
Clergy Reiervet in Caaada, 310, 330 
Cobden, R., 1, 155, 144, 171, 171, 

3»7. 336 
Collier, Mr. R. P. (ifterwirdi Lord 

Monkiwell), 139 
Colonial OSce,attadu on, 151, 177 
Colonial pteu, rejoicing* of, upon Sir 

Wm. Moleiwatth'i appointmoit 

to Colonial Office, J3S 
ColonUition Society, the, 135-139 
Committee on Tnntpartation, Select, 

140 



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348 



SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH 



Com Lam, ibolitioo oF, ii6, 141 

Cenivrall,Bi>t,SiiWin. Molc*wDTtb 
retarued for, 40, S4j reticet ftom 
rcfnaoitMiini of, 115-117 

Cranwonh, Lord, 306 

CriineaD Wu, 3x4, ]i6 

Cnmberluid, Dnkc of, Gnnd Muter 
of Orange Lodge*, S7'9i, 96-99 

Dirwin, CWla, 16 

DcUne, Mr^ Editor of the Timi, 307 

Desurchi, Sigaor, 13 

Deniion, Sir Williim, Oovcmn of 

Derbjr, Earl of, 304, 31S 

De Tocqneville, 64 

Diet*, Mm, 61 

DUneli, the Rt. Hon. Benjimin, 

afterward! Lord BeacoiufieM, 155 
Don PuiGco debate, ti^j 
Donetaliire libouren Mntenced to 

traiuportation, S5 
Dad between Mr. Bimird and Sir 

Wm. MoleawDith, 19, zo, 30 
Duppa, Mr. E^ \%, 61, 9j, 170 
Dnrham, Lord, i, 3, 65, i3Sa,, iH- 

MS. »73. »7* 

Ecole^iaitical Titlea Act, 304 
Edinborgh confen iti fienloin oa Sir 

Wm. Moleaworth, jji 
Education grant eittaded to Roman 

Catholic SdiDola, 161 
Edncatioo, Natiwut, 54 
Egerton, Mr . Hugh, hii SriliU CUmUI 

Po/iej, l6j, JI4 ■. 
Eltice, Mr., 77 
Elliotion, Dr., SirWin. Moleaworth "i 

friend and phjrticiaii, 47 
Enkine, Lord, Britiah Mioiater in 

Mnoich, 14, 15, 30 
Ewart, Mr., M.P., 7s 

Ftinnio, Colonel, 88, S9 
Falconer, Mr., 110, it4 
Faweett, Henry, ai a candidate for 

SoaCbwark, j 
Ford, Mr. Richard, onpubliihed 

memoir of Sir Wm, Moieawortb 

by. J9 «■ 



Ford, Mn. R., of Pencarrow, akts of 
Sit Wm. Moleaworth, j, 11 ■.,60, 
t66, iSoiijo, 338 

Free Trade, 1 1 5, X43, 264, 300 

Carsett, Dr., Lifi a/ Wmk^Od, 3, 

.36-138, 163, 194, 19s 
General Election of 1831, 134; of 

"83+-!, ij*, »i9i rf '8J7, 131. 

134, 119; of 1841,119,1431 of 

1 8 51, 301 
Gladrtone, the Rt, Hon. W. E„ 247, 

172, 287, 297, jofi, J08, 1 jj, 3j6 

337 
Gleoelb Lord, Colonial Secrctarj, 

151, 159, 160, 17B 
Gordon, Admiral, 155 
Onbam, Sir Jwnea, 306, 333 
Grand National Trailet' Union, Sj 
Grant, Mr. Charlea [la Clenelc) 
Granville, Earl, 306 
Grer. Lord, 77, 191 ; break tip of 

ha majority of 1S32, 57 
Grcj, Lord (ion of the above), aa|H- 

port! traniportation, 14I, 187 
Gny, Sir George (Colonial itatcaman}, 

315 
Grey, Sir George, M.P. (Engliab 

politician), 140, 150, 315, 334 
Grate, Mr. and Mra., 46-;2, 61, 62, 

63, 68, 80, 85, loi, 117, 110, 121, 

.22, 114, .ts, 133, 166, 188,110- 

116,219.233-137, 141.242,143. 

144 
"Ontth," 227 

Hamilton. Sir William, 13, 15 

Hardinge, Sir H., 10a 

Haywood, witneia in cue againat 

the Orange Lodgei. 90 
Herbert, the Hon. Sidney, 306, 3]], 

33+ "-.336 
Hobbea, Thomaa. edition of Worka 

by Sir Wm. Moleawoitii, 1 12. 106- 

21], 133, 245 ; dedication to Mr. 

Gtote. 211, 213 i defeact af^ *t 

SoBthwark election, 249 
Hume, '■ the beantiful Betaj." 9 
Home, the family of David, aaaocia- 

tion with the Moleaworth*, 9, 331 



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Home, Joupb, M.P., 75, 90, 9a, 

1*4, HI 
Huxltj, Mr. T. H., 106, t$6 



KiSr wan, 3 lo 

Kent, DuchcM of, 99 

Kcoyon, Lord, Depoty Grud Muter 

of Onngc Lodgo, SS, 90 
Kew Garden) opened on Sunday by 

Sir Wm. Melaworth, 309 
Kmloch, Sir Aliiinder, 9, 10 
Kipling, Mr. Rudyard, 16;. 
Kniger, Mr., 31J 

LanidawDc, tbe Marqaii of, 306 
Leader, Mr. John Temple, 2!, 71, 

go, 14J 
Leeita, Sir Wm. MoloworCh M.P. 

for, iiS-i]i; peace meeting at, 

in 1E40, 116 
Lmden Revitvf, the (aftervarda Lmtdm 

aadffaimhtae), ;8, 100, 109, 115 
Lowe, Sir Hndion, 21 
Lowe, Mr. R., JJ4 
Lytton, Sir B. B., 3]] 

MactBlif, hii dacriptioo of (ionae of 

Common* In 1(31, 36 ; on May- 

nootb grant, 24! a. 
MacLean, Sir William^ tervant, 21, 

26^7, 341 
"Maclii* Portrait Gallery," 17, 71 
Malt tax, divuioo on, 50 
Manchoter School on the Coloniea, 

156 
Martioean, Miu H., her Itiimj if 

lit Tiirp ran- Pact, i, S6 ■., 

193 
Matbewa, Charlei, 17 
Maynooth gnnt, 146, 303 
Melbourne, Lord, 33, 190, 193, 200 
Miill, Mr. Edward, conteita Sonth- 

WMk agiiiut Sir Wm. Moleawortb, 

»5" 



MiU.h 
66 



I, 47, 5S ; death oF, 



Mill, Mr. J. S^ 2, 3, 47, 5S, «o, 63, 
fij, 109, 120, 127, 13!, 157, 194, 
200, 102, loj, 109, 217 

Miln«, Mr. Monckton (atlerwardi 
Lord HoDghtoa), 235 

Mitchell, Major, 22-23 

Moleaworth family, antiquity of, 7 

Moleaworth, Sir Ancott Onrry, Ather 
of Sir William, 9, 10 ; death of, 10 

Moleiworth, Lady, mother of Sir 
William, 9, to, 12, .4. l», 6s, 
91, 93, iSo 

Moleaworth, Mr. A. O., 29, 94 ; 
death of, 140 

Moleaworth, Aadalaia, Lady, 240, 
34' 

Moleaworth, Min Caroline (Sir Wm. 
Moleawonii'i aunt), 230 

Molaworth, Miaa Elizabeth, 23, 32, 
44, ;6 ; death of, 103 

Moleaworth, Mr. Franeia Alexander, 
toi, 102, 112, 16; J death of, 167 

Moleaworth, Hender, Prtaident of 
the Couucil of Jamaica, 1684, and 
fint Baronet, 7 

Moleaworth, John, "Auditor of Cora- 
wall," aettla at Pencarrow, 7 

Moleaworth, Miu Mary (afterward! 
Mn. Ford), 60, 166, iSo, 230, 33s 

Moleaworth, Walter de, 7 

Moleaworth, Rev. William, 15, 43, 
45 

Moleaworth, Sit William, a j poai- 
tioD la a Colonial atateunan, j ; 
deacenCfrom the Home ftimlty, 9 j 
receivca freedom of the dty of 
Edinburgh, 9, 331 j birth of, to j 
delicate health ^ 11, 114, 206 j 
brothera and liitera of, 11 b. j 
education of, 11, 11; it Edin- 
burgh, 13 i at Cambridge, 15-19; 
in Germany, 19-27 ; early Ion 
of matheinatica, 14 ; reaidence of, 
in Munich, ij } ia Rome, 30 } re- 
lurni to England for hia majority, 
3 1 i accepted a> candidate for 
Eaat Cornwall in 1832, 38; re- 
turned nsoppoaed (or Eoat Corn- 



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SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH 



mil, 40 ; oppoKil Iriih CoerdoD 
Bill, 41 i " goe» nowhere," 47 ; 
friendihip with the Grotei, 4S j 
(peecb on the Billot id iSjj, JI ; 
[etDroed 1 Kcond time tot Eut 
Camwall, 54 j eirlj iutinit ia 
Nitidiul Education, 54J detcrminei 
to retire from Eut Cornwill, 57 j 
■nnnifictnce id founding Che Ltudm 

Si ; IpCfcb igainit Onnge Lodgei, 
81-100 J (ttaclu eiclutive privi- 
lega of the GuriU, ISO ; lettci to 
Mn. Groti on death of hU liiter, 
104 ; attitude on religion! quo- 
tiont, 106-iiOj dieappoiated in 
hia hopei of marriage, 1 10 j edit) 
IhewDrkiofThomaaHobbei, iiij 
view* 00 marriage, 113 j retirea 
from repreaentatioQ of Eut Corn- 
wall, 1 1 S j oppoaition to Com 
Liwa, 1 16 ; Kproachei the Grotea 
for filliag to pvt hioi political 
lapport, 111-116; attoidi Radical 
dinner at Bath, 115 ; accept! in- 
viUtioD to aland for Lcedi, 1 19; 
elected for Lecdi, i^T-ijz ; work 
aia Colonial Reformer, 135; movea 
for Select Committee on Trana- 
portalioo, 140; writea the rejiort, 
loS J hi> early appreciation of 
value of the Coloniei, 156) de- 
cline* to lead Colooial expedition 
in penoa, i75->77 ; deairea to be- 
come Governor d New South 
Walea, 170, 177; give) liberal 
Aouiciil iupport to Colonial de- 
velopment, iSo-iSii apeechea on 
Canada, iS;, 197 - 198, log { 
Oppoaea Lord John RubcU') policy 
OD Canada, 186-187} lupporti 
Lord Durham, 197 ; dedicatea hia 
edition of Hobbe* to Grote, iix ; 
hold! peace meeting at Leed*, a 16 ; 
aecondi Mr. Ward'a motion on 
Colonial Landa, 119 j apeecbea 
■gainat Iraii)partatioi], 111, i8x- 
194 } retirea from repreaentation 
of Leeda, it; } an ardeat horti- 
cakuriat and lover of Irtei, 216- 



131 i itodie) Comte, i]S ; boM 
DOW in Parliamciitary Librarj 
Ottawa, 139 i marriage, Z40; 
quarrela with iin. Grate, 141 j 
re-entera ParLiamoit aa M.P. for 
SOHlhwark, 14s [ attitnde on 
Ma]Fnaotb grant and on religioBt 
equality, 146-163 j oppoaed at 
Southwarlc by Mr. Miall, 15'! 
lupportt Buon Lionel Rotbachild'a 
candidature for City of Loiukm. 
159-160 ; oppoaea exdnaion of 
Roman Catholic* from education 
grant, 161-263; renewed work 
for Colonial reform, 164 ; apeecbe* 

to Government Sill confared free 
government in Colonic*, 26S-274 j 
■ ■ -' : of Con 



cath of Buller, 



»74i. 






Royal Comtniu 
adminittration of the Colonic* ; 
renewed work againat tranaporta- 
tion, 178-179 ; ipealca agaioM 
PaltneratOD in Don PadGco de- 
bate, l^j; attack) Lord Derby, 
304-30; ; JMni Lord Abcrdeeo't 

Worlu, 306-307 ; opens Kew 
Gaideni on Sunday*, 309; np- 
potti abandonment of Orange Rivet 
Territory, 31J-317; replie* to 
atUck by Cobdes in Houae of 
Commona, 317-328 ; defend* pay- 
ment of intcreat on RB*ao-Dutch 
loan, 319-330 ; become* Secretary 
of Slate for the Coloniea, 3J3 ; 
illneaa and dettth, 339-342 

Monkey-poule, 228-229 

Monkawell, Lord, 139 

Morley, the Rt. Hon, John, M.P^ 



, chief, 32J 



173 
Moaheah, E 
Munich in 
Muter, JoKph {m Stralou) 

Napier, Sir George, 31J 
Na(ner, Sir William, 100 
National Politial Union, S2 
Neweaatle, Duke of^ 306 



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New ZaliDd, Mr. Fnaci* Mold- 

worth 1 (ouniln of the Colony of, 

i65-i6g 
NeiB ZmUiJ yamal oa Mr. Fnodi 

A, Molwworth, 167-ieS 
New Zealand Liad Compuif, 17!- 

iSl 

O'ConacU, Mr. D., M.P., y% 

Onnge Lodge*, ipeecb by Sir Wm. 
Moleiwordi agunit, tj-S4 

Orange Riwr Tenitory, Sir Wm. 
MaletwoTth'i undelivered ipeech 
■upporting it* ibandaninent, jij- 
317; circumitaaeet of JU abin- 
donmeiit, 3x1-31] 

Ormerod, Miu E. A., edita Miu 
Caroline Moleiworth'i jonmali, 



»39 
Ourry, Admiral, Conutuuioner of 

Plymonth, 9 
Onrry, Lonia, S 
OniTy, Mia^ marriea into the Molea- 

worth bmily, B 

Palmeraton, Viicaunt, 71, 19J-30X, 

jo6, Ji9, J31, 3J3, 34" 
Paniui, Mr. A., 197 
Parlu*. JoMph, S», 7S. 76,78. *» 
Peel, Sir Robert, 37, 71, 14! 
Pcncarrow, leat of the Moleawortb 

hmily, 7, 116 J rare collection of 

"PbilcMophie RidicaU," 14, 5I, 114 
Plaa, Lift tf Francii, by Graham 

W.ll.»,34«.,"°-"'. "89 
Plunkett, Mr. Raodall, M.P., 96 

Queen Aitelttde, 33 
Queen Vtctoiia, iiS, tji 

Raebum'i portrait of Sir Artcott 

Onrry Moleiwoitb, 10 
Railway travelling in 1(37, tjl 



EX JSi 

Raihleigh, Sir Colman, 1 16 

Reeve, Mr. Henry, 307 

Reform Bill of itjl, 33, 119; of 

•S3I, 35-38 
Reform Club, formation of, 70-gi 

Rintoul, Mr. (editor of tbe Sp€clattr), 

113, .3S, 157 
Ripon, Lord, ai Colonial Secretary, 

igj 
Roebuck, Mr. J. A., M.P., 61, 6*, 

111,114, »*S. 1*6, 1S9. »43.i7i 
Roman Catholic) and edncation 

grant, 161-163 
Rome, Sir William vialta, in 1S19, 

30 
Rothichild, B«oa Lionel, caateau 

City of London, 159 
Rutaell, Lord John, 4], 71, 97, 141, 

179, iSs-iSS, 161-161, tSi, 186, 

306, 331, 334 
Ruuell, the Rev. "Jack," ig 
Ruiao-Dutch loan of 1814, 319 

- , c 

MolowMth a , , 

Saliabury, Biahop of, Grand Chaplain 

of Orange Lodgea, U 
Scott, Sir Walter, 13, ij 
Sebattopol, fall of; 339 
Senior, Mr. Na«n, 155, ijg 
Shrewibury, Earl of, 297 
Simptoa,Mn.,MiinJVeiuri(i, i;6d. 
Slavery, abolition o^ 318 
Smith, Mr. Gold win, 173 
Smith, Sir Harry, 311-313 
SoHth Africa in l8jl, 310-315 
South Auilralian Auociation, 154, 

161-164 
Soutbwark election in 1S4J, 14J- 

156) m 1851,301. in 1860, 5 
Stephen, Sir Jame^ i6q, 161, 179 
Straton, General Sir Joaeph, 19, 1911., 

*3. M. 45 
Suuei, Duke of, 7S 
Sutton Manner! ^Lord Abercrombie), 

73 ■., 74 ». 
Swan River SectlenKnt, Wenem 

Auitralia, 139 
Sydenhun, Lord, 196, 174 



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SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH 



TcnajwHi, Lord, i6, loS j Mill^ 

article En IakJoi Rtviao on, 63 
TctcoR, E>evoQ, 1 Kit of Sic Wm. 

HoLowonh, II i^ iS 
Tluckcnj, W. M^ 17, 17, log 
TboafMB, Oeiunl Perronet, 64 
TbomHon, Mr. Ponktt, aftawirdi 

Lord S^esbim, 196, 174 
TliriDg, Mr. Hcdi7 (now Lord), on 

Uk Colonic*, I <9, 170 
Tocquetille, De, 64. 
Tnniportation Commitltt, .857-38, 

140-1;], 2ogg memlien of, 140; 

renewed work by Sir Wm. Mola- 

woTth i^imt, 1I2 
TreUwney, " Greek," xS 
Trelawney, Mr. WiUiim Saluborj, 

40 
TtcTclyan'i Lifi if LtrJ MarnJtf 

quoted, 36 

Trinity College, Cimbrid|c, Sir Wm. 
Moletwottli mignui ^16 

Ullathame, E>r. (ifterwiTdi R.C. 
Biibop of Birmingham}, oo truu- 
portalioo, 145-146, iji 

Van Diemea'i Lind ind tnniporu- 

tioo, 1S4-194 
Victoria, Princeia (afto^rarda ^een 



Viliien, tbe Hoo. Charley So, 34], 

19S 
Wtkefield, Edwird Gibbon, 1, j, 

13s. 138 ■.. 1)9. 14'. 'S». ^S3- 

157, i6t, 161, 169-igi, too-zoz, 

17] ; Lifi >/ bf Dr. Garaett, 3, 

1I7-13S, 194 
Wallaa, Mr. Gnbilu, Lifi tf Frtmlit 

Plan, J411., ilo-ii), 1^9 
War thrciteaed between France uiil 

Engbnd in 1840, 116 
WarbuitOD, Mr. Hauy, M.P., lox. 



Watta, Dr., loS ■., 109 >. 
Wellington, Duke of, 34, i6x-i6] 
Wellington, New Zealand, i&j, 168 
Weit, Mn. Temple, aftcrwarda Luij 

Moletworlli, 140 
9'rammiur ReuioB, 64 
Whatelej, Dr., Archbiahop of Dabtio, 

□ppoaition of, to traiupomtioii, <■ 

143, 147. '4S. "S» 

Wilberforcc, Biahop, i;6 
Wilberfbrce, William, 15a 
William IV. and tbe Rdonn Bill, 

37.38 ; death d^ la; 
Wood, Alderman, 6t 
Wood, Sir Charlo, 306 
WooUcombe, Mr. T., 6{, 97, 9S, 

130-133, 165, til, »I7, 130, iji 



PrhatJtj R, & R. Cuu, Lofmn, BJiiiwit 



7 I 

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